In this Labour Studies Podcast, Andrew Lawrence discusses "Found in Translation: Understanding South Africa's Union Power."
The podcast is provided by the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU), Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网.
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The history and politics of the working-class cannot be understood in merely national terms: global perspectives yield essential insights. Drawing on comparative work on Germany, South Africa and the United States, the speaker examines the bases of labour movements’ power. Large movements often lack power, small movements sometimes wield great power, while many apparent victories by labour ultimately weaken it. To understand these paradoxes, it is essential to look at how unions express power, both in a “dispositional” manner i.e. wielding capabilities, and in a “relational” manner i.e. in relation to the power of employers. Labour movements’ power flows, like electric current, when it moves from one situation, institution, or context to another. But unless this power is effectively “translated” into new relations, based on mobilisation and contestation, it can be discharged without gains. Symbols, alliances, vision and translating gains into other arenas play a decisive role. This talk provides an overview of these arguments, and how they can help analyse, and interpret, South Africa's current conjuncture.
SPEAKER: Andrew Lawrence teaches at the Vienna School of International Studies, and taught previously at the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Edinburgh, UK and the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Virginia, USA. He has a PhD in political science from CUNY Graduate Center in New York, and has researched and worked with labour movements on three continents for over two decades, including with SADWU and SADTU in South Africa, UCU in the UK and SEIU/1199 and AFT Local 2334 in the USA. He is presently working on the role of labour movements in contesting and transforming climate policies and politics.
This talk was originally given on 2 March 2016 at Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网, Makhanda. 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. NALSU, based in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, is engaged in policy, research and workers' education. Built around a vibrant team from disciplines including Economics, History and Sociology, 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.