The last seminar in the Labour Studies Seminar Series for 2019 was presented by Jantjie Xaba, entitled “Social Capital Unionism and Empowerment: A Case Study of the ‘Solidarity’ Union at ArcelorMittal South Africa, Vanderbijlpark.”
The series is run by the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) and the Departments of Sociology & Industrial Sociology, History, and Economics & Economic History.
Speaker: Jantjie Xaba
Date: Wednesday, 2nd October 2019
Time: 4:15pm
Venue: Eden Grove Seminar Room 2
SPEAKER: Jantjie Xaba lectures in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Stellenbosch University. He is completing his PhD on empowerment legislation at former state-owned corporation ISCOR. His MA was in comparative labour studies. Xaba previously worked at the Trade Union Research Project (TURP), a labour service organisation at the then-University of Natal. He has published on the informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa, labour rights in Lesotho and South Africa, employee assistance programmes in retrenchment, and university transformation.
Studies of trade unions in South Africa have focused on the socialist and Marxist union tradition represented by the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (COSATU). This has informed narratives of union crisis, membership decline and paralysis and corruption in the face of neo-liberal globalisation and economic crisis. However, even at its height COSATU represented only somewhat over half of the total organised union movement in South Africa. Examining other union traditions reveals alternative, sometimes very innovative, responses to current challenges, complicating our view of the state of unions.
Based on research on metal workers at ArcelorMittal South Africa (formerly the state-owned steel corporation, ISCOR) , this paper examines how the “Solidarity” union has fostered social capital amongst white working class communities. The union has established its own technikon, press, job placement schemes and charities, and sponsors cultural activities, in addition to taking major steps towards the formation of what will be South Africa’s largest private university. It has also played a significant role in public life, including through its links to the controversial Afriforum. Drawing on Bourdieu’s thinking on social capital, and Jarley’s model of “social capital unionism,” Xaba examines the resilience of the Solidarity tradition – dating back more than 100 years, the union is older than the African National Congress (formed 1912) and COSATU (formed 1985) – and looks at its synergies with Afrikaner nationalism and models like the "Histadrut" in Israel. The paper argues that current conceptions of social capital do not pay close attention to the connection between economic, political and social capital, and for the necessity of examining unions as agents of empowerment and social capital.