by Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit(NALSU)
Hosted by the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) and the Departments of Sociology and Industrial Sociology, and Economics and Economic History at Rhodes University. The Labour Studies Podcasts are from our popular Labour Studies Seminar Series, launched in 2015. We cover "labour studies" in the broadest sense: labour and left history, policy and political economy, unions and popular struggles.
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🇺🇲
Publishing Since
7/8/2020
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March 26, 2025
<p><strong>SPEAKER AND TOPIC:</strong> Lloyd Sachikonye, Annual Neil Aggett Labour Studies Lecture, "The Labour Movement and Struggles for Democracy and Livelihoods in Zimbabwe"</p><p><br /><strong>TOPIC: </strong>Despite claims that workers' movements are fading away, they remain among the largest formations in civil society worldwide, including in Africa; they have been central to struggles for dignity, rights, and equality. In this Lecture, Professor Sachikonye shows how Zimbabwe's unions have been at the heart of struggles for democracy and livelihoods over the past 30 years. They spearheaded resistance to neo-liberal economic adjustment as well as to the authoritarian, militarised ZANU-PF party-state, operating deftly on the harsh terrain of a country wracked by prolonged crises. </p><p>He examines how unions provided invaluable resources, representation, and leadership, not only to workers, but also to other sectors. This included mobilising an effective political party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The MDC made significant gains, despite extensive vote-rigging and repression, and despite the limitations of the Government of National Unity formed in 2009 after disputed elections marred by violence and human rights abuses. Professor Sachikonye also examines how Zimbabwe's long, deep economic decline led to deindustrialisation and the contraction of formal sector jobs and union strongholds, as well as resulted in large-scale emigration. On the other hand, he shows that there has been an imaginative reconfiguration of unions, as labour continues to bridge economic and political struggles in Zimbabwe's difficult environment. </p><p><br /><strong>DETAILS</strong>: The Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) hosts the Annual Neil Aggett Labour Studies Lecture as part of its labour studies seminars series, in partnership with its annual Vuyisile Mini Workers School. This Lecture was delivered at 4 pm on Tuesday 29 October 2024, at the Graham Hotel, Makhanda, South Africa, and streamed online.</p><p><br /><strong>SPEAKER: </strong>Lloyd Sachikonye is Professor Emeritus of Development Studies, at the University of Zimbabwe. He has published widely on African labour movements, and on union, civil society, and the democracy struggles in Zimbabwe. Professor Sachikonye's books include Striking Back: The Labour Movement and the Post-Colonial State in Zimbabwe 1980-2000 (w. Brian Raftopoulos, 2001), Trade Unions and Party Politics: Labour Movements in Africa (w. Björn Beckman and Sakhela Buhlungu, 2010), When a State Turns on its Citizens (2011) and Building from the Rubble: The Labour Movement in Zimbabwe since 2000 (w. Brian Raftopoulos and Godfrey Kanyenze, 2018). He serves on the boards of the union-affiliated Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ), the Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe (FCTZ), the Global Labor Journal , and the Review of African Political Economy.</p><p><br /></p><p><strong>ABOUT NALSU: </strong>The Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) is based in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) is engaged in policy, research, and workers' education, has a democratic, non-sectarian, non-aligned, and pluralist practice, and active relations with a range of advocacy, labour, and research organisations. We draw strength from our location in a province where the legacy of apartheid and the cheap labour system, and post-apartheid contradictions, are keenly felt. We are named in honour of Dr Neil Hudson Aggett, a union organiser and medical doctor who died in 1982 in an apartheid jail after enduring brutality and torture.</p><p><br /><strong>MORE</strong>: <a href="http://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">http://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu</a></p>
June 3, 2024
<p><strong>SPEAKERS & TOPIC: </strong>Anusa Daimon, Chitja Twala, Lucien van der Walt, "Labour Struggles in Southern Africa 1919-1949: New Perspectives on the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU)" TOPIC: The Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) and the Vuyisile Mini Workers School, in in partnership with HSRC Press, were proud to recently launch "Labour Struggles in Southern Africa 1919-1949: New Perspectives on the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU)." This collection provides fresh perspectives on the ICU, which was by far the largest black political organisation in southern Africa before the 1940s, active in six countries and in global trade union networks, and lasted into the 1950s.The book's chapters examine different aspects of the ICU’s record, achievements, and failures in relation to the post-apartheid present. In its syndicalist One Big Union approach to workers’ rights; emphasis on economic freedoms; internationalism; unmatched presence in rural areas and on farms; and robust protection of women and migrant workers, and sheer size, the ICU overshadowed rivals like the African National Congress (ANC), the Communist Party, and the Southern Rhodesia Bantu Voters' Association. It helped forge a popular and proletarian counter-public, and promised freedom through a general strike, not parliament. Not just an exercise in excavating struggle history, this volume demonstrates that the traditions and legacies of the ICU remain of great relevance to contemporary southern Africa. With the recent centennial of the ICU, it is time to revisit this once mighty movement.Contributors to the book include Anusa Daimon, Henry Dee, David Johnson, Peter Limb, Tom Lodge, Sibongiseni Mkhize, Tshepo Moloi, Noor Nieftagodien, Laurence Stewart, Chitja Twala, Nicole Ulrich, Elizabeth van Heyningen and Lucien van der Walt. The book also includes a previously unpublished paper on the ICU by the late Phillip Bonner, doyen of South African social history.The book was co-edited by David Johnson, Noor Nieftagodien and Lucien van der Walt, published by the HSRC Press, and brought together NALSU and the History Workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). We thank Wits for a generous contribution towards publishing costs. It is available at all good bookstores. For more on the book, and downloads (registration needed), visit the HSRC here: https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/labour-struggles-in-southern-africa-1919-1949Three contributors presented at the launch, capturing some of the ICU’s spread and importance. Anusa Daimon looked at the rise of the ICU in Zimbabwe (then southern Rhodesia), and the role of "rabble-rouser" Robert Sambo; Chitja Twala presented his work (with Peter Limb) on the ICU in small Free State dorps and dorpies (small towns); Lucien van der Walt traced the history of the ICU in mining towns in Namibia (then South West Africa). They helped bring the ICU’s history to life. <strong>Details: </strong>This is a recording of a live event in the NALSU Labour Studies Seminar Series, partnered with the Vuyisile Mini Workers School, held on Wednesday, 15 November 2023, at the Graham Hotel, Makhanda, South Africa. The Vuyisile Mini Workers School, for unions and other working-class movements, is part of NALSU's Worker Education Project, of which see here https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu/workereducation/. Work on the ICU is also part of NALSU's Labour History Project: for more information is available here https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu/labourhistory/ <br><strong>ABOUT NALSU:</strong> Based in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, NALSU is engaged in policy, research and workers' education, has a democratic, non-sectarian, non-aligned and pluralist practice, and active relations with a range of advocacy, labour and research organisations. We are named in honour of Dr Neil Hudson Aggett, union organiser and medical doctor who died in 1982 in an apartheid jail after enduring brutality and torture.<br><strong>MORE:</strong> <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu" target="_blank">https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu</a></p>
April 5, 2024
<p><strong>SPEAKER</strong>: Andrew Murray, "Why has South Africa's Industrial Policy Failed to Halt Deindustrialisation and Transform the Economy?"</p> <p><br><strong>TOPIC: </strong>This Lecture examines the evolution of industrial policy in South Africa, and what can be done to save the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing has fallen from 19.3% of GDP in 1994 to just 11.8% in 2019, costing hundreds of thousands of jobs. Employment in textiles, leather products, footwear and clothing fell 50% from 2000 to 2019. The remnants of these former mainstays of the Eastern Cape are rustbelts, gutted factories and stranded working-classes. Factories had been built within the framework of import-substitution, but were not globally competitive; the country remained dependent on raw material exports. With the neo-liberal turn in the 1990s, protective tariffs fell from 28% in 1990 to 8.2% in 15 years. Factories and jobs were washed away by cheap imports.</p> <p><br>Andrew Murray focuses on the policies that were intended to revive local industry from the 2000s, starting with the National Industrial Policy Framework (NIPF) and the Industrial Policy Action Plans (IPAPs), and moving into the more recent Reimagined Industrial Strategy and sector masterplans. Looking especially at the Eastern Cape, he evaluates these policies and examines the impact of state capacity. The Lecture closes with a consideration of what needs to be done to build a coordinated and technically capable state that can build a future fit economy, and negotiate reciprocal conditionalities and trade-offs with the private sector and other stakeholders.</p> <p><strong>DETAILS: </strong>This is a recording of a live event in the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) Labour Studies Seminar Series, held on Tuesday, 14 November 2023, at Graham Hotel, Makhanda, South Africa. <strong> ABOUT NALSU:</strong> Based in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, is engaged in policy, research and workers' education. Built around a vibrant team from disciplines including Sociology and Economics & Economic History, it has active partnerships and relations with a range of advocacy, labour and research organisations. It draws strength from its location in a province where the legacy of apartheid and the cheap labour system, and the contradictions of the post-apartheid state, are keenly felt. We are named in honour of Dr Neil Hudson Aggett, a union organiser and medical doctor who died in 1982 in an apartheid jail after enduring brutality and torture. MORE: https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu </p>
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