Trade unions in the post-apartheid political landscape
This paper will examine how some of the dynamics of change within the post-apartheid workplace are affecting local trade union organising and, potentially, the broader political direction of South Africa's powerful trade union movement. Through a qualitative study1 of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in the energy industry, the paper will elucidate how affirmative action and employment equity policies are contributing to the magnification of mobility divides among members of NUM. In Eskom, South Africa's infamous electricity parastatal, the growth of a socially mobile layer of workers has contributed to declining levels of rank-and-file participation in the union and a growing sense of fragmentation, mistrust and resentment between ordinary workers on the shop floor. It was universally accepted that rates of participation in the union were falling, and that the fallout of this mobility divide was a significant contributing factor to this trend. This problem was compounded by the social mobility of union officials and shop stewards in particular when they accepted supervisory or managerial positions within Eskom; a trend that further exacerbated disaffection with the union among workers and contributed to an increasingly confused union identity.
The paper will attempt to map out the broader political significance of some of these internal problems confronting NUM. Historically, NUM played a critical role in the anti-apartheid struggle and the union was instrumental in the formation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) (Allen 2005, Moodie 2010). Its former leaders have also played prominent roles in South Africa's hegemonic ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC). With over 250,000 members, NUM is therefore the largest and most politically influential of COSATU's affiliates, and would arguably have to be central player in any political change in South Africa instigated by the country's trade union movement. At present, this movement is in a governing alliance with the ANC and the South African Communist Party, and whether or not COSATU remains within this alliance will have an important bearing on the country's political future.
South Africa's ‘double transition’ from apartheid to democracy and, simultaneously, racialised capitalism to neoliberalism (Webster and Adler 1999) has been characterised as an ‘elite transition’ (Bond 2000), whereby capitalist elites have managed to defend and, indeed, advance their economic position in the post-apartheid era. According to some authors, the ANC government's macroeconomic development strategy has ruled out the radical socio-economic redress expected by South Africa's black majority after apartheid (see Bond 2000, 2003, Marais 1998, 2011). In the last five years, the country has witnessed levels of industrial action and township unrest that are unprecedented in the post-apartheid era (Ballard et al. 2006, Barchiesi 2006, Death 2010, Desai 2002, Legassick 2007, Pithouse 2004). It has been speculated that this ‘new struggle’ marks the beginnings of a post-nationalist political era (Bond 2000, p. 250, 2003, p. 45, 2010, Saul 2005, p. 239) as the ANC's supposedly ‘exhausted’ nationalist project is confronted by an emerging class-based politics fuelled by the ‘ineluctable logic of class struggle’ (Alexander 2002, p. 182).
The role that South Africa's trade unions might play in these new political struggles, however, remains unclear. Given the centrality of trade unions in many of the political struggles against colonialism, authoritarianism and neoliberalism across Africa (see Beckman and Sachikonye 2010, Kraus et al. 2007), the important role they continue to play in political developments in neighbouring countries (Larmer 2006, Matombo and Sachikonye 2010, Raftopoulos and Sachikonye 2001), and the fact that the COSATU represents the largest and most organised section of South African civil society, it can be argued that a new class-based politics in South Africa will find little traction without the involvement of COSATU. Indeed, South Africa's trade unions are believed to hold the key not only to galvanising a new class politics in South Africa; they are also lauded as an example for labour movements in other parts of the world to follow in the struggles against neoliberal globalisation. This stems from COSATU's pivotal role in the struggle against apartheid: it was a role made possible by an adherence to what Webster (1988) identified as ‘social movement unionism’ (SMU), combining deeply embedded traditions of democratic shop-floor organisation (which encouraged rank-and-file militancy) and engagement in a broader political struggle to overcome apartheid in alliance with other social movements (Baskin 1991, Buhlungu 2004, Friedman 1987, Siedman 1994, Wood 2003). This won the labour movement global acclaim, and academics heralded South Africa's unions' virtuous commitment to democratic organisation, membership participation, linkages with civil society, and broader social/political goals as a model of unionism that could be replicated elsewhere in an effort to regenerate labour moments in the north in particular (Clawson 2003, Moody 1997, Waterman 2001). Moody (1997, pp. 201–227), for example, implores northern unions to ‘look south’ to the example of SMU offered by unions in Brazil and South Africa who, he argues, have retained a ‘solid class outlook’ in their political organisation.
But are South Africa's unions in a position to lead a new left-wing politics informed by such a ‘solid class outlook’ and grounded within the organisational principles of SMU? For one thing, evidence suggests that support for the ANC is still strong among ordinary union members (Beresford 2009, 2012, Buhlungu et al. 2006b, Ebrahim 2002, Pillay 2006; Southall and Wood 1999) and that workers are wary of the idea of a new workers' party emerging from the unions (Pillay 2006). Despite this evidence, some scholars continue to argue for the need for COSATU to form an electoral alternative to the ANC in order to introduce ‘substantive uncertainty’ into South Africa's dominant party system, without which the ANC's nationalist project will continue unchallenged and the goals of socio-economic transformation will go unmet (Habib and Taylor 1999, Harvey 2002, Legassick 2007). Other authors suggest that COSATU must forge linkages with South Africa's burgeoning ‘new social movements’ (Bassett 2005, Bond 2010, Ceruti 2008, Ngwane 2003) and become part of the fabled ‘movement of movements’ offering a counter-hegemonic challenge to global neoliberalism (Gill 2003, Mertes 2004).
This article will explore some of the internal difficulties that COSATU and its affiliates might face in galvanising such a new class-based politics, leaving aside the debates as to whether such a move would be supported by its members. It is argued by some authors that COSATU's affiliates continue to exhibit the virtues of the SMU model in terms of maintaining grass-roots democracy (Brookes et al. 2004, Buhlungu 2004, Donnelly and Dunn 2006, Hirschsoln 1998, 2007, Wood and Dibben 2006, Wood 2003, Wood and Dibben 2006). Rank-and-file participation in COSATU unions is indeed still considered to be high (see Wood and Dibben 2006, Wood and Psoulis 2001, pp. 300–310), leading Brookes et al. (2004, pp. 773–774) to argue that through this participatory culture COSATU ‘successfully reconstitutes its role as a social movement and remains committed to militant mobilisation’. In a similar vein, Wood and Psoulis (2001, p. 310) draw a conclusion that through this capacity to mobilise its members ‘COSATU remains one of the most effective trade union movements in the world’.
However, the union movement has encountered several problems which undermine its capacity to maintain democratic practices and militant mobilisation. Several authors, for example, have pointed to how the union movements' political outlook has become confused since the ANC government took power, and that it has gradually adopted a more defensive posture vis-à-vis the government's macroeconomic policies (Catchpowle and Cooper 2003, p. 26, Lehulere 2003, Van Driel 2003). As one National Labour and Economic Development Institute (NALEDI) (2006, p. 26) report notes: ‘There has been a tendency by COSATU … to respond within the terms set by the neo-liberal political climate advanced by the ANC, rather than challenging these much more boldly and decisively’. This confused political platform has been compounded by the so-called brain drain of talented union leaders entering into government positions and senior private-sector jobs, and by the unions themselves setting up investment companies (see Iheduru 2002, Southall and Tangri 2006). Bramble (2003, p. 190), concludes from these trends that ‘the result at grassroots level is widespread bewilderment, demoralisation, and a perception that the union movement is beating a continual retreat’. Some analysts have also pointed to increasingly undemocratic tendencies emerging within COSATU affiliates in the post-apartheid era, particularly as certain groups such as women (Tshoaedi and Hlela 2006), young workers and casual labourers are far less likely to participate in union structures (Wood and Dibben 2006). There have also been notable instances of an increasingly bureaucratised union leadership bypassing democratic procedures by reaching compromises and accommodations with management without the mandate of their more militant membership (Desai 2008) and the related problem of union leaders using their positions for personal advancement (Buhlungu 2002, Maree 1998, Webster and Buhlungu 2004, Wood and Harcourt 2000). These tendencies have not only undermined union democracy, they are also contributing to a declining participatory culture in the unions, in which members are increasingly becoming passive recipients of officials' initiatives (Bramble 2003, Buhlungu 2002, Von Holdt 2003).
According to some authors, the broader significance of these trends is that they have stymied the militancy of COSATU's rank-and-file in the workplace, and have undermined strike activity in some instances (Bramble 2003, pp. 189–191, Buhlungu 2002, p. 15, Desai 2008, Maree 1998, pp. 35–42, Van Driel 2003, p. 78). It has been argued that in cases where this militancy has taken a more political direction, in the form of demonstrations against the government during strike action, COSATU's leadership have channelled this militancy away from a broader political challenge to the ANC's nationalist project; exemplified by the COSATU leadership's embrace of Jacob Zuma as their political champion in the 2007 ANC succession race (Bassett and Clarke 2008, Bond 2007, Ceruti 2008). Although, as I have discussed elsewhere, some of these trends of bureaucratisation and the erosion of democratic practice are evident in the dynamics of NUM's organisation in Eskom (Beresford 2011), in this article I will draw attention to other factors that have led to the decline in militant mobilisation in NUM. The dynamics of post-apartheid class formation, it is argued, are contributing to a confused union identity. Rather than displaying the prerequisite ‘solid class outlook’ that Moody et al. argue is essential for galvanising a more political SMU, some of the profound changes to the social structures and bonds of solidarity within the union explored in this case study present significant obstacles to NUM spearheading a new class-based politics. If, as other scholars suggest, these internal dynamics are evident in other industries, this has broader reaching consequences for how we understand the political potential of South Africa's union movement (Bezuidenhout and Buhlungu 2007, 2008, Buhlungu 2010, Von Holdt 2002, 2003).
Employment equity, affirmative action and the mobility divide
The sheer diversity of Eskom's workforce makes it fairly unique, in the South African context, for such a large-scale national industry. NUM's membership in Eskom reflects this diversity and, indeed, as I will elucidate below, the union's strategy is premised on providing representation to a broad range of workers from the blue-collar, manual workers (the ‘labourers’) right through to senior management, including power-station managers. Eskom's workforce in the power stations is predominantly composed of manual workers of varying skill levels; the vast majority of desk-based administrative work is carried out in the administrative centres away from the power stations themselves. NUM's membership in the power stations is not only diverse but also spatially separated in the workplace, both visually, in terms of the uniforms they wear, and also physically, due to the sheer scale of the worksites and the diverse roles that these workers are playing. This separation is reinforced by the large disparities in the salaries earned by NUM's members; disparities that are found across NUM's organisation in other sectors (Bezuidenhout and Buhlungu 2007, p. 251). Those in the lowest job grades, who constituted the majority of those interviewed, can expect to earn around ZAR65–70,000 while those in more skilled professions, such as artisans and senior technicians, could expect to earn double this figure at the very least. Some of the engineers and senior managers that NUM also represents could also expect to earn four or five times as much as those workers on the lowest pay scales. These disparities within the power station, which are reproduced daily through the spatial separation of workers in the power station, are also reflected outside of work through the noticeably divergent consumption patterns exhibited by the different strata of workers.2
While NUM's membership in Eskom was already reasonably diverse before the end of apartheid, employment equity and affirmative action policies introduced by the ANC government have intensified the stratification of NUM's membership since 1994. Eskom and other parastatal companies were under considerable pressure to become forerunners in terms of employment equity and affirmative action policies in the early 1990s. NUM's national office bearers, regional leaders and, at the power station level, members of the branch executive committees (BECs), held an extremely positive view of Eskom with respect to its affirmative action and employment equity policies; policies that they heralded as a ‘victory’ that the union had struggled hard for (Interviews with Oupa Komane, 20 November 2007, and Frans Baleni, 6 November 2007). One of the unintended consequences of employment equity policies, however, has been the manner in which they have contributed to the diversification of NUM's membership in Eskom. A growing mobility divide within NUM's membership has emerged between a relatively skilled section of the workforce endowed with greater human capital (in terms of education, language skills and training) and social capital (in terms of relationships developed with managers), and the relatively unskilled ‘labourers’ who had relatively few prospects for upward mobility within the company.
This mobility divide, however, was depicted by most workers as a generational divide because this is perhaps the most easily recognisable characteristic of the differences.3 This divide was framed in quite general terms by workers as being between the ‘young’ workers who had entered into employment in Eskom since the 1990s and the ‘old’ workers, usually in their mid forties and fifties. Many older workers expressed a deep sense of alienation in the workplace with respect to their prospects for upward mobility. Older workers contrasted their predicament of being stuck in low-paid, low-skilled and vulnerable jobs in Eskom with the relative mobility of the younger workers who, they argued, could use their qualifications to advance in Eskom or to ‘escape’ to better paid jobs in the nearby mines, which they considered to be too physically demanding or required greater skills than they possessed. A common perception voiced by workers was that better wages could be earned in the nearby mines where the workers were ‘living rich’ and ‘earning twice as much’ as workers in Eskom. Those ‘left behind’ complained that they were marginalised from such opportunities and often described themselves as ‘trapped’. Whether the grass was indeed greener in the mines is a moot point: these narratives, through which older workers lamented their relative inability to ‘escape’ Eskom compared to their younger counterparts, became one of several ways through which a growing mobility divide was expressed in generational terms.4
Older workers often argued that not only were they unable to leave behind the miserly wages offered by Eskom, they were also treated ‘disrespectfully’ within the power stations by being looked over for promotions and the training opportunities offered to younger workers. They would complain bitterly that they felt that Eskom would never consider them for promotions – even to supervisory positions – even though they felt their greater experience in the job made them more ‘skilled’ than their younger counterparts – particularly young females5 – because they did not ‘understand the job’ as well as they did. During one of the group interviews I conducted with workers who were all in their mid fifties or older, one worker complained that:
You see at Eskom there is a problem. If you are not educated, you are nothing, you are rubbish. But you see I built this power station and I have been here [for a] long, long [time]. I am old. These young educated guys they come here now and get everything…
When they come in the plant they go straight past me and talk to managers [without asking for my opinion] and they forget about me, they call me madala – old man – they push me, and they say I must go home. (Group interview with Eskom workers, 21 December 2007)
It was indeed common for skilled young NUM members to recognise their relative privilege. Lindelani, for example, is a skilled worker in his early twenties with matric qualifications and also a technical diploma. He was hired by Eskom a few years previously and, following his training, was already hopeful of achieving promotions in the future. He argued that the greater opportunities available to the younger, more skilled sections of the workforce were creating feelings of resentment within NUM's membership and was therefore ‘dividing the workers’ because
it makes some workers think that they are better than others. So from my side, in terms of my salary, I feel like I am better than them [lower-skilled members]. What you find is that some of us guys have qualifications that we can use around Eskom [to get a promotion] or even outside [the company in other industries] so that is why we feel different from them. I feel that I have the confidence to take my qualifications and go somewhere else [to get a job] if I need to. (Interview with Eskom worker, 10 December 2007)
This fragmentation of the workforce in Eskom is not unique. Indeed, Bridget Kenny's (2004a, pp. 328–334) detailed study of retail workers in the East Rand also highlights how the ‘metaphor of age’ has provoked generational cleavages within the workplace because age has become a primary marker of difference. Kenny (2004a, pp. 328–334, 2004b) found that the fragmentation of the workforce along generational lines was fundamentally rooted in the differentiated employment status of young and old workers: in her study, the older workers were in permanent, protected positions whereas younger workers tended to have casual or subcontracted employment status, and that ‘casual workers articulated their displeasure with declining conditions through resentment of permanent workers, a more proximate target than distant regional or impotent store management’ (Kenny 2004b, p. 491). Although in Eskom it was the younger workers who were considered to be the relatively privileged ‘generation’, here too the metaphor of generational divide more accurately reflected a growing divide between workers with different levels of social mobility; a divide that did not always fit in with rigid age categories.
Million, for example, is a 20-something counterpart of Lidelani, whom he is not familiar with. Million rarely crossed paths with Lindelani on a day-to-day basis, despite being the same age. He was asked what his job role was when the interview began and, in response, complained bitterly for some 20 minutes about his job title of ‘utility man’. The job role involved performing various maintenance tasks across the station, which required no substantial prior training. The job title, he said, inhibited his chance for promotion or further training because it was too ambiguous, and the job was not situated at the bottom rung of a particular career ladder. He complained that he would be ‘trapped’ in this job ‘forever’ ‘until the union addresses this issue’ (Interview with Eskom worker, 12 December 2007). Million was also concerned that workers performing similar low-skilled functions to him were increasingly finding their employment status with Eskom terminated, and their jobs ‘contracted’ to independent labour brokers, who would invariably offer lower wages and employment benefits. Million is not alone: there were many less-skilled young workers who faced a great deal of alienation in the workplace, not least because Eskom has increasingly used external, independent ‘contractors’ to hire workers in roles that are deemed to be ‘non-core’ to the power station's functions; a trend that can be witnessed across many South African industries (Bezuidenhout and Buhlungu 2008, Kenny 2004a, Webster and Von Holdt 2005, Webster 2006). Young, low-skilled workers therefore exist in Eskom: some work alongside their older counterparts, such as Million, while many of them are increasingly invisible in both the workplace and the union due to their less formal employment status. Therefore, while these divisions were most often framed in generational terms by workers themselves, because this was perhaps the most easily identifiable characteristic of difference, it really reflected an emerging mobility divide characterised by unequal levels of social mobility and a growing sense of mistrust and animosity between workers with greater mobility prospects and those without.
The ‘generational divide’ and the changing culture of union participation
Shop stewards and NUM officials right up to the national leadership regarded the declining participatory culture within the union, evident in falling attendance rates at union meetings, as the largest and most significant challenge that NUM faces. Although space does not permit a discussion of all the various factors contributing to this dynamic here, the mobility divide discussed above had a major bearing on the nature of workers' participation within NUM's structures. In this respect, Job Matsepe, the NUM's national organiser for the electricity industry, identified what he believed to be ‘two worlds in the same organisation’ which held distinctly different attitudes towards the union and how they should participate within it. The first comprised the (generally younger), better-educated and skilled sections of the workforce, and the second comprised the (generally older), less-skilled ‘labourers’ (Interview with Job Matsepe, 25 April 2008). Union officials at all levels agreed that the more skilled workers were generally6 less likely to attend union meetings and this perception was not only shared by workers themselves, it was confirmed in their attitudes towards participating in the union and by my observations at meetings.
The general feeling among ‘old’, less-skilled workers and, indeed, shop stewards and officials, was therefore that the ‘young’, more skilled members of NUM, simply did not share the sense of collective solidarity that they were ‘supposed’ to. As one shop steward remarked, this different approach to life had knock-on effects for how they engaged in NUM structures:
There is a difference [between the generations]. I'm not sure how to put this but maybe you see these young people are involved more in drugs, liquor and all these things. In terms of participating [in the union] there are some who participate but not like in the past. You don't find them participating that much like the 1976 youth7 [would in the union]. They have stopped participating so the interest [in the union] is really going down, I must say. (Interview with Eskom worker, 20 December 2007)
it is something that is widespread. And I think we should be worried about what do we teach the young ones and the youth joining the unions. Now you will remember that in South Africa the political climate has dramatically changed. I joined the mining industry as I've said when a certain group of people were not allowed to be members of a trade union and oppression was the game of the day. Now there is no more apartheid; people are no more beaten [anymore]. At times it is difficult to identify the enemy. The drop in union meeting attendance is [because] the type of people that are joining the industry don't have the same problems that we had when we were joining the industry. Something what I think is driving these young guys is possession. Possession in terms of what do I own as an individual, what do I want as an individual. (Interview with Piet Matosa, 27 May 2008; original emphasis)
Once again, however, although this was framed as a generational divide, pertaining to a difference in the cultural values that each generation held, it is equally important to understand the differences in workers' attitudes towards participation within the union's structures as being determined by relative social mobility. For example, I found that young, unskilled workers were engaged in union meetings and were very knowledgeable about both recent meetings and union affairs in general. On the other hand, young skilled workers often displayed a far more individualistic attitude towards the union. This can be partly explained by the fact that they are less dependent on the union to improve their livelihoods than their less-skilled peers are: unlike the ‘labourers’ who were almost completely dependent on the collective bargaining of NUM to improve their salaries, training prospects and general well-being in the workplace, the skilled sections of the workforce were often able to pursue their interests through individual negotiation with management. A member of the branch committee at Arnot power station remarked that this was something that branches across the country had been discussing at shop stewards' councils and that
You only find these old people attending the meetings and it looks like they are the only motive force now because the young people they come and they are well-educated and they get placed in nice positions. The old people, they are still struggling with the salaries and everything and they will not get the manager coming to say [to them individually] that ‘I want to increase your salary by this amount and all that’: they only receive incremental salary increases whereby the unions have negotiated that particular amount of increment. So it's very disappointing. It's the same situation at Duvha [power station] and I guess even at Kriel [power station] where we only get the old people attending meetings. So the older comrades are the only motive force behind the union at this time. (Interview with Eskom worker, 20 December 2007)
This is not to suggest that the more skilled workers simply ‘have it easy’, although they are clearly privileged compared to their less-skilled counterparts and broad sections of South Africa's black population who are unemployed, in casual work or mired in rural poverty (see Seekings and Nattrass 2005). What is important to emphasise here is that their capacity for social mobility makes them better equipped to navigate the challenges of living in post-apartheid South Africa as individuals, and this makes them less dependent on the kinds of collective solidarities that ironically made this social mobility possible in the first place. Indeed, labour analysts have pointed to the difficulties that COSATU's affiliates have found when attempting to mobilise the growing number of skilled members they represent, who place different demands on their unions than the low-skilled workers that formed the majority of their membership back in the 1980s and early 1990s (Webster and Buhlungu 2004). Although it would be crude to argue that all skilled workers were disengaged from the union, the general trend of this cohort being less engaged in union affairs was observed widely among union members, their shop stewards, and also the national leadership, albeit framed in these generational narratives. This was seen as a major reason behind falling rates of participation in the union's structures which, it was often argued, was contributing to a growing demobilisation of ordinary members. It was clear from my research, however, that a small section of skilled workers were involved in trade union structures. As I will now discuss, however, this sometimes had a damaging impact on the bonds of solidarity between shop stewards and ordinary members.
The compromised integrity of union structures
The erosion of the class integrity of NUM's structures has contributed to a decline in the trust union members have in their union, which has served to compound some of issues of members disengaging from the union discussed above. The end of apartheid offered unprecedented opportunities for the organisations that were formerly involved in the national liberation struggle to engage with the state, which has often led to the bureaucratisation of these organisations, notably with the creation of full-time positions for senior figures. Scholars have commented on how a ‘race to riches’ has affected the organisational dynamics within the various branches of the liberation movement, in both the ANC (Butler 2007, Cronin 2005, Lodge 2004, Motlanthe 2007, Southall 2008) and South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) (Seekings 2000, Zuern 2001) as leading positions within these movements increasingly represent secure forms of employment and/or stepping stones into lucrative jobs in the private sector. In this respect, Buhlungu notes that this has also affected the trade unions because
the opening up or deracialisation of society triggered class formation on a scale that has no precedent in black South African history. Activists of the struggle period were catapulted into new positions of power and high remuneration without the stigma that was associated with those positions in the days of apartheid. These processes of class formation were part of the context within which unions were operating and they shaped developments within the union movement. (Buhlungu 2002, p. 15)
It is also possible to witness similar processes of class formation within the unions at the workplace level. One of the more complex issues arising out of the opportunities created by affirmative action policies, for example, has been the phenomenon of NUM shop stewards being promoted into supervisory and management positions in Eskom. This is an issue affecting COSATU affiliates in other industries (see for example Von Holdt 2003) as well as NUM (see Bezuidenhout and Buhlungu 2007, pp. 250–259, 2008, p. 272). It has long been noted that shop stewards in the UK find themselves in a contradictory location between management and union members, and that they are usually required to take on a mediating role between the two (Lane 1974). In this respect, Webster notes how the post-apartheid era led to new pressures being exerted on shop stewards because they are no longer simply there to ‘stir up trouble’ and have increasingly been required to play a ‘managerial function settling grievances’ (Webster 2001, p. 197). As such, Webster contends that
[the behaviour of shop stewards in South Africa cannot be fully understood without exploring how their identity in the workplace is shaped by the changing political context. The apartheid workplace nurtured strong, oppositional shop-floor structures and blocked the promotion of shop stewards; the abolition of political apartheid has led to a decline in shop-floor structures and the rapid promotion of key shop stewards. (Webster 2001, p. 197)
The significance of shop steward promotions was brought to my attention by workers who would regularly raise the issue as a primary concern when given an open question about NUM's performance at the local level. During my research I witnessed first-hand, the promotion of one shop steward and one full-time shop steward. I also heard countless tales from branch leaders and union officials of shop stewards that had been promoted, with varying perspectives on the impact this was having on the union itself.
A prerequisite for such promotions was, of course, that the shop steward concerned had the skills required for such a promotion into supervisory or management roles. Workers and officials generally reported that it was shop stewards who already had relatively good skill levels that were being promoted, and that it was not just because he or she was a shop steward per se. Nonetheless, it was clear for some of these workers, becoming a shop steward did serve to enhance their prospects for promotion, and that becoming involved in union affairs was therefore potentially rewarding. This depended on individual circumstances, but it was widely held by workers and officials alike that being a shop steward benefited workers in two particular respects. First, it would improve their human capital in terms of giving them experience of negotiations, carrying out administrative functions, and also mediating potentially antagonistic relationships between workers and managers. Newly elected shop stewards also receive direct training from the union itself, giving them important skills in human resource management that could compliment their existing technical expertise and distinguish them from their peers.8 Second, being shop steward also increased their social capital understood as ‘the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, p. 119) through personal interactions and increasing familiarity with management. Workers would often remark that shop stewards would use their position, for example, to ‘get in the eyes’ of managers and draw attention to their skills. As Piet Matosa, the regional chairperson for NUM, remarked:
Unfortunately there is nobody that doesn't want promotion. Now once you are identified by an employer, that ‘no, this guy is trainable, we can take him for further training’ our members get absorbed by the employers and unfortunately there is no way that the union can stop anyone from progressing. (Interview with Piet Matosa, 22 May 2008)
Survey evidence and analysis provided by the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) team suggests that workers are remarkably ambivalent about the phenomenon of shop steward promotion, with half of the workers surveyed agreeing with the statement that ‘it is acceptable for shop stewards to be promoted into management positions’ (Southall and Tangri 2006, pp. 120–121). This kind of attitude was recognisable among Eskom workers who generally saw shop steward promotions as something of a double-edged sword: while they were mindful of the potentially debilitating effects this process would have on union organisation, they nonetheless often framed it as a natural process and one that could potentially improve their own lives. They were often sympathetic towards their shop stewards' aspirations of upward mobility. Trying to attain promotion through such means was broadly regarded as understandable, considering the material hardships that many black workers continued to face. One worker, Moses, for example, said that: ‘I've got 8 children and I'm earning [ZAR]1500 [per week], this is why a shop steward take management position if given’ (Interview with Eskom worker, 10 December 2007). It was often said that it was ‘natural’ for workers to want to ‘feed their families’ or ‘put bread on the table’. Workers would often say that they did not see anything wrong per se if a shop steward was promoted owing to his skills and ability and there were very few workers who begrudged their shop stewards being promoted simply because they were a shop steward. After all, as it was regularly pointed out to me, ‘shop stewards don't elect themselves’ and workers said that they would re-elect shop stewards who had demonstrably performed for them, even if in the process they had been promoted to management positions.9
Furthermore, the promotion of shop stewards into management positions and, indeed, the presence of supervisors and management in the union structures in general, was not necessarily framed in a negative light, or as being inherently contradictory. Ordinary workers argued that seeing their comrades promoted was, in itself, reflective of a broader ‘victory’ of the transition from apartheid consolidated through having ‘their own’ representatives in positions of management. It was commonly expressed that ‘comrades’ who pursued their personal ambitions would, in some way or another, be able to ‘assist’ the members they were ‘leaving behind’. At the very least, workers hoped that having their own leaders promoted would ensure a more sympathetic ‘ear’ in management. It was regularly expressed that an understanding management would treat them better and ‘understand’ their plight. It was often said by shop stewards and officials that it was better to have these personal links with management because ‘you know this guy’ and that ‘you know you can influence him’ or that he would ‘give us a platform’ to speak to him or her. Such a view was shared by the local shop steward branch executives as well as the regional and national leadership. According to this view, which was widely held among more senior shop stewards and union officials, having shop stewards promoted into management was a way of increasing the influence of NUM in all sections of power station management. The union's own policy in this regard, something that was regularly recounted by these leaders, was that there was ‘no contradiction’ in a shop steward being promoted into a position of management per se.
For example, I asked the full-time shop steward, Joe Skosana, about Xolani, one of the shop stewards on a branch executive that I had interviewed who had been promoted into a management position during my time researching. I enquired whether Xolani was still an NUM member and, somewhat surprised, Joe replied that he was still active and was still visiting the regional offices on a regular basis. He explained that this was part of a broader strategy on the part of NUM to recruit new members and retain existing ones from management positions. He explained:
We have members who are very senior management, those who are even three job grades higher than Xolani. I think it's a policy of COSATU that we support managers being union members because then you have a manager who goes into the power station and he understands the workers issues and where we are coming from. So if you've got them there you can try to engage them in the forums.
Interviewer. It is strategic?
You see that is what we think; you might be able to get the company to start implementing policies that are biased towards workers rather than trying to build from outside all of the time. It takes a lot to convince a company not to implement a policy that they agreed on if you are engaged only as an outsider. It is like the policy of the intelligence community – you plant your person in there, not to report everything back to you or anything but just to represent you in there as a mole. (Personal communication with Joe Skosana, 21 April 2009, original emphasis.)
However, there were some profoundly negative consequences of shop steward promotions. Several commentators have pointed to the sizeable ‘brain drain’ which COSATU experienced during and after the political transition as its national leaders took up high-level positions in the ANC, the government or in business (Buhlungu 2006a, p. 12, Wood 2001). At the workplace level, the promotion of shop stewards into management positions has been regarded as a potential threat to collective solidarity and organisational strength in South Africa (Harcourt and Wood 2003, p. 96). Indeed, the process of shop stewards being promoted into positions of management is usually treated as a ‘problem’ for the unions, one which undermines their working-class ethos, bonds of solidarity, and practically incapacitates the union through the flight of vital skills into management positions (NALEDI 2006, p. 29, see also Buhlungu 2002, Bramble 2003, Von Holdt 2002, 2003).
At a local and a national level it was felt that affirmative action, and the promotion of shop stewards in particular, had had some unintended negative consequences. Frans Baleni, the NUM's general secretary, remarked that this reflected one of the largest problems facing the union because they were now encountering senior managers – who had formerly been NUM members – that were more hostile towards the unions than their white counterparts because
they have crossed the floor, and they are on the other side with management. For example the chief [wage] negotiator of Eskom was a branch chairperson of NUM. Now they tend to be more negative towards the union because they fear that they must be seen from management side to have really crossed the bridge, that they are not still linked with the union and so on and they become more difficult than the people who had no relationship with unions [before]. (Interview with Frans Baleni, 6 November 2007)
The problem with the unions, what I can say is that the union must be very much clever to the management because they are trying to recruit some of those active guys you see. They must be very much careful of that because that's not good. They just say ‘that guy's the best, let's take that guy to an HR [human resources] position then we are going to hammer the employees’. As I said the HR and the management they are forming a pact to get those strong guys to their side you see? If the union do not wake up they are going to be like Mathla power station where the union has just been demolished [by this]. (Interview with Eskom worker, 20 December 2007)
A new culture of union leadership?
It was often said that shop stewards who were promoted into management would not ‘look after’ the workers they represented because they were motivated by self-preservation. As one worker explained, union positions had now been reduced to being
a career ladder. These people want to be shop steward because they are looking at their own future. I'm not saying that I disagree with people who are shop stewards that they must not be promoted but these people are wanting to be a shop steward because they know when you are a shop steward management can give you any position so that you can stop talking too much or what what. (Interview with Eskom worker, 12 December 2007)
Because it makes the members lose trust in the unions because you go there and they can say that this person is just after his or her interests, he or she doesn't represent the members' interests. Because you can see someone who is an opportunist – he just wants to further his or her career – so that sort of makes the trust of the members go down. It actually kills the union. (Interview with Eskom worker, 20 December 2007)
The shop stewards are not good enough because now the shop steward he concentrates on the promotion you see? He just fights for his own terms, they don't worry about the workers all the time because if you've got a problem he's not there to solve the problem, he stays far away from you. Yes, they like it in management you see. Always they take sides with the management to get a promotion. That is our problem. (Interview with Eskom worker, 21 December 2007)
As a leader you are elected to lead…. If you don't want to work for the organisation then take your jacket and leave…. The honeymoon is over. (Observations at Eskom National Shop Steward's Council, 7 March 2008)
You see the challenge that we are facing today's leadership is that the struggles of the workers are no longer like what they used to be in the past right? For heaven's sake in the past we have elected true leaders but today people just get into positions because they want to climb ladders. A person is elected and then from there within six months or seven months he's a manager. We lack true leaders. (Interview with Job Matsepe, 25 April 2008)
In some cases it is simply a case of misuse of resources such as cell phones. However, in certain cases it has led to instances of serious corruption, while in others it arises from expenditure on lavish items such as expensive luxury cars, accommodation at five star hotels, and first class air travel. (Webster and Buhlungu 2004, p. 45)
That union positions have increasingly been seen as a route to personal advancement should not be of any great surprise if we compare it with the manner in which other civil society organisations, political parties and government institutions have been transformed in the post-apartheid era. What can be said to have transpired in the NUM in Eskom, therefore, in many ways mirrors broader social change in South Africa as the opportunities available for enrichment through official structures of political parties and civil society distort the internal functioning of such organisations and distract them from their raison d'être. Indeed, the perception of a careerist, self-preserving leadership predominating within NUM's structures fuelled mistrust and suspicion between regular members and union leaders. For example, workers lamented what they perceived to be the unwillingness of NUM's leadership to overturn legal restrictions on their right to strike; an unwillingness that they frequently suggested owed to their leaders becoming too cosy with Eskom's management. This breakdown of trust between sections of NUM's membership and its leaders have been brought into focus at the national level in recent months amid a growing outbreak of wildcat strike action across the mining sector and the formation of a new union. The events surrounding the Lonmin mine massacre in particular could prove to be a watershed moment for NUM and have raised serious questions about a breakdown in support among workers for their union leadership. As I will now conclude, these trends have potentially broader implications for how we understand the social composition of South Africa's powerful trade unions and, as a result, their political prospects.
Conclusion
John Radebe, NUM's full-time shop steward in Eskom for the Gauteng region, remarked that NUM had become a ‘victim of our own victory’ in the post-apartheid era (Interview with John Radebe, 14 May 2008). By this, John meant that while the union had been at the forefront of the campaign for employment equity and affirmative action policies to be introduced in Eskom, these had had unforeseen consequences for NUM's organisation. As Bezuidenhout and Buhlungu (2008, p. 274) have argued, mobility has become a ‘double-edged sword’ for the NUM which has severely tested the bonds of solidarity across its organisation and have eroded a unifying identity around which workers might be mobilised.
Labour analysts around the world have argued that if trade unions are to be politically reinvigorated and take their place at the forefront of struggles against neoliberalism then strong democratic organisation, worker participation and a ‘solid class outlook’ would be needed to forge a unifying mobilising identity that would form the basis of a radical SMU strategy (Moody 1997, Waterman 2001). The capacity for South Africa's unions to maintain their political power and influence will depend in large part on how effectively they can resolve the internal organisational dilemmas posed by the political and social upheavals of South Africa's ‘double transition’. While numerous factors have contributed to organisational problems in NUM and other COSATU affiliates, this article has highlighted how social mobility has opened up divides within the union and eroded collective solidarities both among the rank and file and between them and their leadership.
These profound social changes pose difficulties to the unions but, it should be noted, their effects are neither inevitable nor irreversible. Although NUM's official response to these challenges is, at present, quite ambivalent and loosely articulated, the increasing heterogeneity of its membership could be harnessed by NUM (and other COSATU unions) as a source of strength that could reinvigorate the unions' organisation and broaden their political appeal in the longer term. This, however, would need a clearly articulated organisational strategy that ensures the increasing diversity of its rank and file is represented in union structures, particularly those closest to the shop floor, so as to make sure that workers of all skill levels, and particularly those in more precarious forms of employment, perceive the union to be representative of their interests. The issue of shop steward mobility and leadership needs to be tackled head on by paying closer attention to the attitudes of ordinary members: an ambivalent ‘business as usual’ approach to these dynamics would appear to be eroding the organisational identity of the union while yielding ambiguous strategic benefits for NUM and its members. Developing clear, unambiguous measures to tackle this issue in consultation with members would go some way to ameliorating the fallout these issues have caused. This need not be an either/or choice between continuing to mobilise members in higher job grades and revoking their memberships, but it would require targeted strategies aimed at protecting the integrity of the union's leadership structures.
These are clearly tentative suggestions. What can be said with greater degree of certainty is, however, that if COSATU and its affiliates are unable or unwilling to tackle the dilemmas posed by what Karl Von Holdt (2003) has highlighted as the profound ‘transition from below’ in the post-apartheid workplace, they could unwittingly find themselves becoming, as John Radebe argued, the victim of their own victory; consumed with internal struggles rather than taking a place at the forefront of struggles over workplace transformation and the country's social and political future.