Glenda Daniels Engaging the State and Business: The Labour Movement and Co- determination in contemporary South Africa edited by Glenn Adler (Witwatersrand University Press)
This book offers a comprehensive and concise view of contemporary debates within the labour movement and alliance politics in South Africa today. It captures the essence of co-determination by airing the nuances and the state of paths to be taken in trying to reach consensus over economic policy developments.
The book focuses on policy research, and topics include workplace forums, negotiating the future through forums like the National Economic, Development and Labour Council, democratising the public service and employers’ strategies with regard to worker participation. The importance of the book is that it highlights the most contemporary debates regarding alliance issues, compromise debates and labour’s strategic ambivalence in certain areas. Adler is an associate professor of sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand and an associate of the Sociology of Work Unit. The book was commissioned by the National Labour and Economic Development Institute, the research wing of the Congress of South African Trade Unions. A second book by Adler, Public Service Labour Relations in a Democratic South Africa, is about to be published, and it will be the first book to analyse the embattled public service in South Africa. At a seminar at Wits University on public service transformation, Adler said the public service reminded him of a tortoise. “It moves slowly, but when you prod it, it will stop altogether.” Adler presented a bleak view about future relations between the public service and labour. He elaborates in the book that part of the problem is that historically there has been an absence of labour relations in the public service. He added that the public service culture used to be characterised by “centralism, paternalism and patronage”. He said employees were treated according to the level of loyalty they had to the ruling party. To a large extent, this culture is still alive and well today.
The transition to democracy meant that fundamental changes had to happen, and now workers are granted the right to belong to trade unions, said Adler.
“The issue of labour relations in the public service is more complicated than anywhere else in society. Not only is the state the biggest employer, with over a million employees, but the way the restructuring happens will have implications for development as a whole in the country. For me, the problem lies more with management than with labour,” Adler says.