KHAYA SITHOLE: Path towards obscurity of trade unions is set and seems irreversible
The fourth industrial revolution may be the final nail in the coffin of the labour movement which has failed to change with the times
Precisely two years ago, in the dramatic era in politics known as the pre-Nasrec era, former president Jacob Zuma was booed at a May Day Rally in Bloemfontein. The humiliation of the president by members from the working class at the ANC’s birthplace represented the low point of the fractured alliance between the ANC and the labour movement. An alliance with a longstanding history of solidarity based on the commitment to workplace equality and society at large, faced its greatest crisis emanating from the hangover of persistent unemployment, the perils of state capture and the broken politics of the ANC. The country’s unemployment conundrum — pervasive across social classes but amplified among black youth, alongside income and wealth inequality — remain the most tangible exhibits of the lost economic decade. The trade union movement, with its storied history in SA dating back to the Industrial Conciliation Act of 1924, has achieved significant gains for workers in labour relations ...
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