1 hr 11 min
NALSU Labour Studies Podcast | Kate Philip, University of the Witwatersrand: Union-Based Workers' Cooperatives in Southern Africa Labour Studies Podcasts
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- Education
SPEAKER AND TOPIC: Kate Philip, University of the Witwatersrand: "Union-Based Workers' Cooperatives in Southern Africa: Markets on the Margins: Mineworkers, Job Creation and Enterprise Development"
TOPIC: Can we get off southern Africa's historic path of cheap labour, centralised capitalism and endemic rural poverty? And do workers' co-operatives show a viable way out, enabling justice and equality for the workers and poor?
This seminar and book launch examines one of the most ambitious, systematic, and sustained efforts at union-backed worker-run producer co-operatives in southern Africa: the 30 co-operatives established by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), in South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini (Swaziland). Written by an insider –- Kate Philip, United Democratic Front (UDF) activist and coordinator of NUM's co-operatives' programme –- it charts the NUM experiment in people-driven development and rural transformation. It examines the successes, but also the failures, drawing the often-difficult lessons learned from grappling with the limits and opportunities that exist to reduce poverty and improve livelihoods. Kate Philip also explores whether and if so how, markets might be made to work better for the poor.
The NUM co-operatives emerged against the backdrop of a massive strike. The mining industry has been core to capitalist South Africa, based on cheap, oppressed labour. The NUM was the first mass black worker-based union on the mines since the 1940s. It faced off against the mighty Chamber of Mines in 1987: employers cracked down; 40,000 mineworkers lost their jobs, and were sent back to their villages. To help these men and build the union, the NUM set up 30 worker co-operatives in three countries. Over time, NUM broadened the scope to include rural development and job creation through its Mineworkers Development Agency. The NUM's programme, evolving against the backdrop of South Africa's transition from apartheid, provided critical support to poor rural communities hard hit by escalating job losses on the mines.
Kate Philip's book, "Markets on the Margins: Mineworkers, Job Creation and Enterprise Development," is published by James Currey Publishers.
DETAILS: This is a recording of a live event in the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) Labour Studies Seminar Series, held on Wednesday, 15 May 2019, at Eden Grove, Seminar Room 2, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa.
DETAILS: This is a recording of a live event in the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) Labour Studies Seminar Series, held on Wednesday, 15 May 2019, at Eden Grove, Seminar Room 2, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa.
ABOUT NALSU: 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
SPEAKER AND TOPIC: Kate Philip, University of the Witwatersrand: "Union-Based Workers' Cooperatives in Southern Africa: Markets on the Margins: Mineworkers, Job Creation and Enterprise Development"
TOPIC: Can we get off southern Africa's historic path of cheap labour, centralised capitalism and endemic rural poverty? And do workers' co-operatives show a viable way out, enabling justice and equality for the workers and poor?
This seminar and book launch examines one of the most ambitious, systematic, and sustained efforts at union-backed worker-run producer co-operatives in southern Africa: the 30 co-operatives established by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), in South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini (Swaziland). Written by an insider –- Kate Philip, United Democratic Front (UDF) activist and coordinator of NUM's co-operatives' programme –- it charts the NUM experiment in people-driven development and rural transformation. It examines the successes, but also the failures, drawing the often-difficult lessons learned from grappling with the limits and opportunities that exist to reduce poverty and improve livelihoods. Kate Philip also explores whether and if so how, markets might be made to work better for the poor.
The NUM co-operatives emerged against the backdrop of a massive strike. The mining industry has been core to capitalist South Africa, based on cheap, oppressed labour. The NUM was the first mass black worker-based union on the mines since the 1940s. It faced off against the mighty Chamber of Mines in 1987: employers cracked down; 40,000 mineworkers lost their jobs, and were sent back to their villages. To help these men and build the union, the NUM set up 30 worker co-operatives in three countries. Over time, NUM broadened the scope to include rural development and job creation through its Mineworkers Development Agency. The NUM's programme, evolving against the backdrop of South Africa's transition from apartheid, provided critical support to poor rural communities hard hit by escalating job losses on the mines.
Kate Philip's book, "Markets on the Margins: Mineworkers, Job Creation and Enterprise Development," is published by James Currey Publishers.
DETAILS: This is a recording of a live event in the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) Labour Studies Seminar Series, held on Wednesday, 15 May 2019, at Eden Grove, Seminar Room 2, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa.
DETAILS: This is a recording of a live event in the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) Labour Studies Seminar Series, held on Wednesday, 15 May 2019, at Eden Grove, Seminar Room 2, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa.
ABOUT NALSU: 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
1 hr 11 min