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11 - The Challenge from Below: The Rise of the Shop Steward Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2025

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Summary

All three responses to deracialization in the post-Wiehahn period dealt with in Chapter 10 — the racial exclusivity of the Y & S and the AEU, the multi-racial approach of SAEWA, the IMS and SABS, and the formation of the independent, black SEAWU — share a commitment to the maintenance of the Industrial Council system. The responses dealt with in this chapter are different in that they oppose the present Industrial Council system and aim instead at direct involvement of the shop floor in industrial relations. Unions which share this approach differ as to how it can best be conducted — and these differences exist within as well as between unions. In particular, divergent views exist on what the relationship ought to be between the work place and the wider popular struggle in South Africa — as can be seen in the various strategies of the GWU, GAWU, BAWU and now UMMAWOSA, all of whom have members in the engineering industry. However, the great majority of organized black foundry workers, an estimated 25 percent of the industry, belong to MAWU, the largest of the expansionary unions. We will focus in this chapter on the strategy of MAWU in the post-Wiehahn period.

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Cast in a Racial Mould
Labour Process and Trade Unionism in the Foundries
, pp. 231 - 260
Publisher: Wits University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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