{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.015806111696522657, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.418918918918919, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
South Africa in Transition: Scenarios Facing Organized Labor

The labor movement was one of the main actors in popular resistance to apartheid in South Africa. A militant working class, radicalized by a deeply entrenched socialist discourse and organized through practices stressing grassroots self-organization decisively shaped the transition to democracy. In post-apartheid South Africa organized labor faces a new set of challenges. The contest over labor's role in the economic reconstruction and the challenges of a tripartite industrial relations system are confronting trade unions with a new dilemma. They have to remain responsive to grassroots militancy while, at the same time, channeling it in a development effort that emphasizes social pacts and non-adversarialism. This paper analyzes these issues, emphasizing the social processes of the construction of militancy at the workplace as crucial to the analysis of unions in transition.