Title : Postcolonial Workplace Regimes in the Engineering Industry in South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe
Working Paper No : 53 (series 1)
Author(s) : Andries Bezuidenhout
Date : November 2004
[PDF]
Abstract:
This paper considers the nature of
workplace regimes that are constructed on the ruins what has
become known as the 'apartheid workplace regime' by analysing a
sub-sector of the engineering industry as a case study. In the
context of the breakdown of the racial division of labour in the
workplace, wage and job colour bars still operate informally.
With the racial structure of power in the workplace no longer
supported by the state, the language of 'flexibility' and
'globalisation' reinforce the arbitrary exercise of power over a
layer of contract workers. Migrant labour remains as a key
characteristic of the labour market in Southern Africa as such,
and this is reinforced by the segmentation of the labour market
into 'permanent' and 'contract' employees. While the segregation
of facilities according to 'race' is no longer sanctioned by the
state, workers experience segregation along company lines of
hierarchy as 'racial'. The location of the industry in the
industrial geography of apartheid is replicated in the context
of Southern Africa, specifically because of the state formation
of Swaziland, and the resemblance this has to the former
Bantustans under apartheid. The concept 'post-colonial workplace
regime' is developed in order to describe and understand these
transitions.