Representing foreign workers in the private security industry
A South African perspective on trade union engagement
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4252902 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Steven Lawrence Gordon (0000-0002-6393-2118, Human Sciences Research Council, corresponding author), Steven Gordon (0000-0003-4090-1199), Brij Maharaj (0000-0003-1266-2231, University of KwaZulu-Natal) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 123-149 |
| Publication date | 2014-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Modern African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-278X • E-ISSN: 1469-7777 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0022278x13000773 |
| OpenAlex | W2023958025 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 28 |
In recent years South African cities have become home to a large number of undocumented migrant workers. If trade unions do not organise undocumented migrant workers, it opens up such workers to exploitation and maltreatment by employers, thereby creating a split labour market that undermines the entire labour movement. This article focuses on the responses of the national trade union movement in the private security sector to the presence of undocumented workers at the grassroots level. Using a case study approach, we find that the pressures of labour market informalisation in the industry prompt unions to seek to maintain and advance their position from their traditional support base of citizen workers rather than attempt to include new groups. The failure to engage is reinforced by anti-immigrant attitudes which link foreigners with problems in the industry such as low wages and portrays such workers as co-conspirators rather than comrades. While justice and solidarity have always been the foundation of trade unionism in South Africa, the movement is in danger of failing this test if the current situation in terms of the exclusion of undocumented foreign workers persists
Business · Economics · Grassroots · Immigration · Labour economics · Political economy · Political science · Position (finance) · Solidarity · Trade union · Employment and Welfare Studies · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics
Immigration, Labour Markets and Employment Relations
Immigrant workers and class structure in Western Europe
Precarious Liberation
Grounding Globalization
Immigrant Workers, Precarious Work, and the US Labor Movement
Grounding globalization
From Human to Workers' Rights
The precariat
Unions and the Politics of Immigration
A paradox of victory
Trade unions, social policy & class compromise in post-apartheid South Africa
Globalisation and Migrant Labour in a ‘Rainbow Nation
New Immigrants, Old Unions
Accumulation by Dispossession and Its Limits
The Functions and Reproduction of Migrant Labor
The geographies of community‐oriented unionism
Immigrant Workers and Class Struggles in Advanced Capitalism
Is There Room for International Solidarity within South African Borders? Cosatu's Responses to the Xenophobic Attacks of May 2008
Loving the alien? Citizenship, law, and the future in South Africa's demonic society
Claiming Workplace Citizenship
The 'Labour Aristocracy' in Africa
Living with non-state policing in South Africa
Democracy and distribution in highly unequal economies
Migrant "Illegality" and Deportability in Everyday Life
Capitalism and cheap labour-power in South Africa
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |