South Africa’s Shifting Political Economy: Labor Unions Thrown into Turmoil

SOUTH AFRICA - Report 27 Jul 2015 by Iraj Abedian

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After a year-long struggle to regain its membership of COSATU, SA’s largest private sector union, National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) with an estimated membership of over 360,000 members, resolved to go on its own and form a new “union confederation” and launch its own “workerist political party”.The ANC, too, has given up on convincing NUMSA to do otherwise. There are at least another seven unions that have aligned themselves with NUMSA. SA’s political economy is thus thrown into a state of flux 20 years into the democratic dispensation. It is a fact that the dominance o...