Negotiating South Africa's economic future: COSATU and strategic unionism

This dissertation investigated South Africa's 'second transition,' the economic policy negotiations that accompanied the commencement of majority rule. It focused on the efforts of the largest trade union federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), to shape the economic framework of post-apartheid South Africa. To do this, it analyzed how the federation made use of three national economic and labour policy negotiating forums, the National Economic Forum, the National Manpower Commission and their successor, the National Economic Development and Labour Council. These forums were comprised of representatives of business, labour and government.The dissertation drew upon a number of policy engagements between 1992 and 1997 to assess organized labour's interventions as measured against the goals for economic transformation that the trade union federation had approved. It found that COSATU did not substantially shape core labour and economic policies through its participation in the national policy-making structures. In the realm of macroeconomic policy, COSATU was starkly at odds with the government's approach and pushed for a fundamental revision of the program. In the area of industrial restructuring and trade liberalization, COSATU was marginal to the policy-making process. Only in the sphere of labour rights and standards could the trade union movement point to clear gains and even in this instance they were disappointed by some of the provisions contained in the new legislative framework.The dissertation identified several factors that contributed to COSATU's inability to play a more substantial role in shaping the post-apartheid economic dispensation. Two factors that shaped the context for the South African economic transition worked against the federation's agenda: the importance of South Africa's economic structure (dominated by a small number of very large mining conglomerates) and the nature of the international economic regulatory regime of the 1990s. Actors associated with these two important and interrelated social forces influenced African National Congress economic policies both before and after the first democratic elections while neutralizing many of COSATU's proposals.The dissertation suggested, however, that notable weaknesses in the trade union federation's own interventions further limited its influence. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...