Social and regional alliances are some of the strategies that will be discussed at a labour conference next week focusing on how to deal with the problem of globalisation and the changing nature of work.
The conference is entitled Challenges Facing Labour in Southern Africa: Marginalisation or Revitalisation?. Topics for discussion include: labour in a globalised world; labour in a new Southern African Development Community order; political and organisational challenges for trade unions; and economic liberalisation and its challenges for labour.
Organised by Wits University’s Sociology of Work Unit, the Southern African Trade Union Coordination Council and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftng Institute, the conference will explore how researchers can provide support for labour in the new order.
“Connecting and disconnecting” is how Professor Eddie Webster, Wits academic, sees the impact of globalisation, where rich northern countries remain connected to the global economy and southern countries continue to be disconnected.
Through the growth, employment and redistribution strategy, Webster says, “we are being disconnected, we are getting marginalised. This debate is beginning to take place within the alliance and it’s about how we get back to the RDP.”
In a document entitled Connecting and Disconnecting, Webster poses some of globalisation’s challenges: how does one combine increasing productivity with employment creation? How does one provide for social protection in a market where a growing number of workers do not have fixed employment or a fixed salary? Can the state extend its protection to these workers? Glenda Daniels
A better deal for the exploited? Page 30