Fighting for Life: South African HIV/AIDS Peer Educators as a New Industrial Relations Actor?
| Author | David Dickinson |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2006.00520.x |
| Published date | 01 December 2006 |
| Date | 01 December 2006 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations
44:4 December 2006 0007– 1080 pp. 697– 717
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2006. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Oxford, UKBJIRBritish Journal of Industrial Relations0007-1080Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2006December 2006444697717Special
Edition on New Actors in Industrial Relations
HIV/AIDS Peer Educators as a New Industrial Relations ActorBritish Journal of Industrial Relations
David Dickinson is Associate Professor at the Wits Business School, University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Fighting for Life: South African HIV/AIDS
Peer Educators as a New Industrial
Relations Actor?
David Dickinson
Abstract
This article examines HIV/AIDS peer educators in South African workplaces,
drawing on research in five companies with large peer educator programmes.
The research indicates that peer educators are primarily focused on reducing
new HIV infections and ‘normalizing’ the epidemic by promoting change in the
behaviour of individuals — a feature that is not accounted for by theories of
workplace mobilization based on collective action. Similarly, their role is inad-
equately explained by theories on the emergence of new workplace actors based
on the changing nature of work, shifting identity salience in society, and the
nexus between workplace and communities as opportunities for union regen-
eration. After outlining the profile and activities of workplace HIV/AIDS peer
educators, attention is paid to their motivations and methods of action, their
relationship to management and unions, and the way in which they straddle
workplace and community. The implications of this and the possible trajectory
of workplace peer educators as a new industrial relations actor are discussed.
1. Introduction
There is recognition within industrial relations scholarship of the need to
understand a more complex industrial relations environment than that orig-
inally outlined in the Dunlopian system (Ackers 2002; Heery
et al
. 2004; Kelly
1998). The exploration of a greater plurality of actors and a greater range of
interactions has been pursued in a number of ways. Outside of the traditional
employer–employee partnerships, the literature identifying new workplace
actors focuses on establishing collective interests that can be articulated and
acted upon in opposition to the status quo and the collective agents who can
be identified as responsible. Kelly (1998) provides a restatement of principles
concerning mobilization geared to achieving collective action. This entails a
698
British Journal of Industrial Relations
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2006.
leadership group identifying a hitherto latent interest and organizing collec-
tive action by the relevant constituency in a cost-effective way.
In evaluating the possibilities for new industrial relations actors, this paper
draws attention to HIV/AIDS workplace peer educators in South Africa.
The AIDS epidemic presents a major social and developmental challenge
to South Africa. With a cure still remote, it is anticipated that the country
will have to deal with the epidemic for decades to come. Companies are now
mounting workplace responses for a range of social and economic reasons
(Dickinson and Stevens 2005). Within this context, the concept of workplace
peer education — in which ‘average’ employees, rather than ‘experts’, take up
a role in HIV/AIDS programmes — has been promoted.
Peer education is a widely used tool in the response against HIV/AIDS and
‘typically involves training and supporting members of a given group to effect
change among member of the same group’ (Horizons/Population Council,
n.d.: i). The perceived effectiveness of this strategy draws on research indicat-
ing that, generally, ‘similarity between message source and recipient is vital
to the ultimate impact of the message’ (Wolf and Bond 2002: 362). Among
the advantages of peer education is the ability to access people infected with
HIV or vulnerable to infection. This access is both physical and sociocultural
(UNAIDS 1999), with peer educators able to communicate effectively
because they understand the language and patterns of communication of
those whom they seek to influence.
Peer educators are expected to conduct a number of functions —
articulated with different degrees of clarity — within company HIV/AIDS
programmes. These include assisting with company-wide initiatives, such as
voluntary counselling and testing drives; giving formal presentations to col-
leagues on HIV/AIDS during team or other meetings; informal discussions;
providing a first line of confidential advice to co-workers; referring where
necessary to other sources of help such as the occupational health practitio-
ners; and engaging in community projects, generally in the form of visits to
institutions or talks to community groups.
The South African Department of Labour (2003) recommends a ratio of
one peer educator to every 50 workers. If followed by South Africa’s formal
sector companies, the Department of Labour’s recommendation would trans-
late into approximately 150,000 peer educators nationwide, probably more
than the national count of shop stewards. This statistic alerts us to the
significance of workplace peer educators not only for South Africa, the first
significantly industrialized country to experience high HIV prevalence rates,
but also for other countries as the pandemic shifts from its current sub-
Saharan epicentre to larger industrialized and industrializing countries such
as Russia, India and China.
This paper argues that workplace HIV/AIDS peer educators do not fit
easily into explanations of new industrial relations actors. While workplace
peer educators have emerged as a leadership group, this constitutes a more
complex mobilization process than that suggested by their assigned roles in
support of company HIV/AIDS programmes. Moreover, and critically, their
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