The independent trade union movement has become increasingly significant in the popular struggle against racial capitalism in South Africa, yet it has so far attracted comparatively little attention from geographers in the region. One of the concerns of this paper, then, is to consider ways in which the spatial configuration of South African industry affects workers' organisations. In this context, the focus centres upon strike activity in the manufacturing sector. From an analysis of the changing composition, fortunes, and strategics of the trade union movement since the 1950s—substantially reviewed here—it can be seen how such activity is influenced by factors at work within the state apparatus and within the unions themselves, and is indicative of the everchanging relationship that exists between these two. Our major objective here, though, is to demonstrate how certain spatial and temporal variations in strike action may also be related to particular developments in the structure of South African capitalism. The forces underpinning the emergence of a spatial/sectoral division of labour and the contradictory imperatives driving industry towards the centralisation and decentralisation of capital are the developments under review.
Michael Sutcliffe and Paul Wellings criticise Lawrence Schlemmer's widely‐cited survey which purports to show that a majority of black male production workers in South Africa are against ‘disinvestment’ and, by implication, would prefer US business to pursue a strategy of ‘constructive engagement’. Their critique was cited by the United Democratic Front on 12 June 1985 and debates at a widely‐publicised seminar in Durban on 25 June. Their paper goes beyond a critique of Schlemmer's methodology to question conventional assumptions about the significance of disinvestment in South Africa fr employment. Their critique raises central methodological questions about the inferences which can be drawn from opinion surveys and the political use to which their results can be put.
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