Eroding the Core: Flexibility and the Re-Segmentation of the South African Labour Market

Abstract

Drawing on two case studies of the growth of casualisation and subcontracting in South Africa, this paper shows how 'flexiwork' is being introduced at the same time as South Africa's first democratically elected government is trying to extend basic core rights and standards to large sectors of the workforce that have in the past been excluded from the core labour regulation regime. This shift by employers towards 'flexiwork', in combination with high unemployment and the legacy of a sharply racially segmented labour market under apartheid, is re-segmenting a dual labour market. An increasingly polarised labour market is emerging, consisting of a growing number of marginalised 'flexiworkers' next to a 'core' workforce of black and white workers who increasingly also feel the threat of insecurity. The use of flexible labour is partly a response to a well-organised labour movement which has won shopfloor rights over the past decade and has succeeded in getting these rights entrenched in law. Although the labour movement has committed itself to organise 'flexiworkers', it is a long way from innovative responses to the challenge of flexibility.

Daily news and daily bread: Precarious employment in the newspaper distribution sector in Durban, South Africa

“…Kenny and Webster argue that the continuous mutation in the South African labour market appears to sustain the resegmentation of the labour market which was initiated along racial lines during the apartheid era. Numerous scholars have explored the experiences of workers in service sector (Bezuidenhout & Fakier 2006) and retail sector (Kenny & Webster 2008), among others. However, there is still lack of knowledge in exploring the employment experiences of the street newspapers sellers and home deliverers in South Africa.…”

Rustenburg's Fractured Recruitment Regime: Who Benefits?

“…However, new forms of recruitment, especially through labour contractors, combined with old patterns perpetuate super exploitation, which is made worse by the job insecurity that labour broking introduces. Similar theoretical arguments outlining the use of subcontracting in mining and consequent precarity have been made (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu 2011;Kenny & Bezuidenhout 1999;Kenny & Webster 1999) but have not been positioned as a shift in the migrant labour recruitment regime. The shortterm nature of brokered job recruitment entails a rupture in the employer/ employee relationship where neither the broker nor the mine take responsibility for this labour.…”

Globalisation and poverty: impacts on households of employment and restructuring in the textiles industry of South Africa

“…The second trend follows the passing in 1979 of the Industrial Conciliation Amendment Act allowed the emerging labour movement to pressurise firms into implementing a basic floor of labour rights Godfrey, 1995a, 1995b). In response, many firms introduced various forms of precarious employment arrangements including fixed-term contracts, the subcontracting of labour, socalled 'independent contractors', and other forms of casual employment such as home working, as alternatives to 'regulated' factory work (Kenny and Webster, 1999). These practices have become more entrenched since the onset of economic liberalisation, permitting firms to shed excess labour in response to the vulnerability of the industry to import competition and export requirements.…”