Challenging 'umthetho we femu' (the law of the firm)

Gender relations and shop-floor battles for union recognition in Natal's textile industry, 1973-85

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2103197
AutoresAlex Lichtenstein (0000-0002-9928-4247, autor correspondente)
Ano2017
Volume87
Fascículo1
Páginas100-119
Data de publicação2017-02-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAfrica (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0001-9720 • E-ISSN: 1750-0184
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0001972016000711
OpenAlexW2582542725
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas22

As part of a growing working-class movement that sought full legal status as employees in South Africa, stable urban residence and union recognition, female African factory workers became part of a dynamic new labour movement emanating from the shop floor. At the same time, this new role allowed them to challenge patriarchal structures of authority in the factory, the community and the home. This article examines the gender dimension of a bitter inter-union rivalry that beset Durban's Frame textile complex during the early 1980s. With African unions at last recognized by the apartheid state, Frame sought to bolster the strength of a compliant company union in order to thwart the organizing drive of a more confrontational independent union, an affiliate of the newly established Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU). This union rivalry was fought out in the courts as well as inside the factory, in the streets of Durban's townships, and in an African workers' hostel in nearby Clermont. The legal dispute generated affidavits by women workers attesting to the pressures they faced to join the company union and their reasons for preferring FOSATU. This evidence shows that African women successfully challenged the patriarchal authority of male managers, security personnel,indunasand male co-workers at Frame in order to join an independent union

Economics · Factory (object-oriented programming · Labour economics · Political science · Rivalry · Sociology · Trade union · African history and culture studies · Law · Legal Issues in South Africa · South African History and Culture