Ten Years After: South African Employment Relations Since the Negotiated Revolution
| Author | Stephen Dunn,Eddy Donnelly |
| Date | 01 March 2006 |
| Published date | 01 March 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2006.00485.x |
British Journal of Industrial Relations
44:1 March 2006 0007– 1080 pp. 1–29
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2006. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
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Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Oxford, UKBJIRBritish Journal of Industrial Relations0007-1080Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2006March 2006441129Articles
South African
Employment Relations After ApartheidBritish Journal of Industrial Relations
Eddy Donnelly is at the Institute of Business and Law, Bournemouth University. Stephen Dunn
is at the Industrial Relations Department, London School of Economics.
Ten Years After: South African
Employment Relations Since
the Negotiated Revolution
Eddy Donnelly and Stephen Dunn
Abstract
Post-apartheid South Africa has embarked on an ambitious programme of
labour market reform in pursuit of ‘dynamic efficiency’ and ‘redistributive jus-
tice’. It involves both legislation to promote equality among races and an insti-
tutional framework inspired by the European Social Model. We examine how
this framework has fared over the past decade, in particular pinpointing the
tension between adversarial traditions and the new social partnership, and
between market-oriented economic policy and corporatist institutions. Our con-
clusion is that the system has performed reasonably well, but tackling the mass
unemployment at the root of continued inequality is a far longer-term project.
1. Introduction
Ten years after a ‘negotiated revolution’ removed the apartheid regime (Adam
and Moodley 1993: 59–70), it would seem timely to reflect upon South
African employment relations. The body of literature on the subject is exten-
sive, and our aim is to interpret it in a way that will be digestible to those
who are interested in transforming economies, in particular, and comparative
employment relations, in general. Four aspects of the post-apartheid system
are of primary concern to us.
First, taking the entire employment relations system, decisions made ini-
tially by the Government of National Unity after 1994 and endorsed by the
ruling African National Congress (ANC) and its South African Communist
Party ally after 1999 flew in the face of received wisdom. During the 1990s,
the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade
Organization orthodoxy was that transforming economies should ‘free up’
their labour markets. Instead, South Africa looked to advanced Europe for
inspiration. It legislated for ambitious social dialogue at a national level,
2
British Journal of Industrial Relations
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2006.
encouraged industry-wide bargaining
1
and within the workplace promoted
bodies akin to works councils. This echoed some of the corporatist
2
aspira-
tions expressed in Eastern Europe after communism fell, aspirations fre-
quently overwhelmed by the rush to markets (Kregel
et al
. 1992; Thirkell
et al
.
1994, 1995, 1998). A similar hazard faced South Africa because reforms were
introduced precisely when, with international sanctions lifted, its economy
was exposed to free trade. Moreover, the successful corporatist economies of
northern Europe that South Africa copied are bolstered by social and insti-
tutional norms that nurture co-operation and compromise, and have the
advantage of being rich (Crouch 1993; Lehmbruch and Schmitter 1982; Trax-
ler 2003a,b,c). Given South Africa’s deeply troubled history, acquiring such
norms, especially after the euphoria of democratization wears off, means a
long trek with no guarantee of success. How much progress has been made?
The second aspect concerns employers. When communism fell in Eastern
Europe, extensive privatization meant a new pattern of ownership, a transi-
tion to capitalism. Not so in South Africa. Capitalism existed before and after
the ‘negotiated revolution’. Although employers had long borne the brunt of
black union militancy and were tarred with the brush of the old regime, they
and their managers were not generally usurped. So it is important to examine
the employers’ role. To what extent have they put the antagonism of the past
behind them and adapted to the requirements of the new system? For exam-
ple, in the corporatist systems of advanced Europe, employers operate within
a framework of strong associations, acting in concert and showing solidarity
(Traxler 2000; Traxler
et al
. 2001). To what extent have South African
employers been willing to do this, and if not, what future for the reforms
(Bramble and Kuhn 1999: 17–20; Donnelly 2001: 553; Nattrass 1997: 105;
1998: 28)?
Trade unions provide the third issue. Unlike in most of the former Soviet
bloc, trade unions in South Africa retained their political and economic
influence beyond transition. The black unions’ reputation derived from their
resistance to the white regime in both workplace and community (see, for
example, Baskin 1991; Hirschsohn 1998; Wood and Harcourt 1998). They
gained for themselves a strong voice that could not be ignored in building the
new nation (Baskin 2000: 45–7; Friedman and Shaw 2000: 203–10). The only
parallel in Eastern Europe was
Solidarnosc
in Poland. Yet, after an initial
success,
Solidarnosc
found it difficult to satisfy its supporters’ expectations in
the post-communist era (Bartosz 1996; Hardy and Rainnie 1996; Rainnie and
Hardy 1995: 275–8). Sometimes, disillusion rather than spoils goes to the
victor. Any union movement that has been in the forefront of a successful
struggle to remove an oppressive regime faces the dilemma of finding a new
role for itself. Have South African trade unions found that role?
Finally, there is the State. Democracy has been fragile in post-colonial
Africa. Liberation hopes have frequently degenerated into corruption, dicta-
torship, one-party rule and/or civil war, as freedom succumbed to economic
and social stress. South Africa was relatively fortunate in so far as it had a
charismatic figurehead, Nelson Mandela, who championed reconciliation, an
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