Social Movement Unionism: the Case of South Africa

In the context of renewed international debates about the significance of social movement unionism, this article undertakes a detailed analysis of social movement unionism in a South African steelworks. The study investigates the importance to union formation of political, racial, migrant and ethnic identities forged beyond the workplace, and assesses the impact of the transition from apartheid to democracy on union social structure. It argues that the prevalence of both popular political and premodern identities, and of intense internal contestation, coercion and violent conflict, contradicts what are frequently regarded as core features of social movement unionism. With the transition to democracy and processes of elite formation in postcolonial South Africa, social movement unionism has undergone an erosion, as solidarity has fractured along new and old lines. The article argues that the term social movement unionism has become ambiguous through too broad an application, and concludes that, rather than attempting to define a specific model of social movement unionism, analysis should focus on understanding the movement dimension of trade unionism, its relation to the institutional dimension, and how this changes historically and varies in different sociopolitical contexts. Claims about the transferability of union strategies across national frontiers must be regarded with scepticism.