Search Results

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has played a pivotal role in ensuring that Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) assessment be included as a key principle of the reforming education and training system in South Africa, as RPL is seen to be an important mechanism for redressing past injustices and inequalities. A number of COSATU affiliates have participated in RPL assessment processes within their industries with the expectation that significant numbers of workers would be upgraded, would receive more pay, or would have increased opportunities for training. By and large, these expectations have not been met. Against such a backdrop, COSATU embarked on a participatory research process for developing implementation policy so that RPL might serve its intended redress and transformation agenda. This paper presents some of the policy issues which emerged during the research process by drawing on the RPL experiences of two affiliates. It concludes with some worrisome realities about the extent to which RPL on its own can serve as a social justice agenda.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

This paper represents a progress report on a continuing research project investigating the working life and learning of roadside work-seekers around Cape Town, South Africa. As many of the roadside work-seekers display boards and tools representing the construction trades, the intended destination for work or employment appears to be the construction sector. Many of the roadside work-seekers are inter-provincial migrants and immigrants, who have moved to find work and may have more limited social capital. Characterisations of the work-seekers as 'unskilled labourers' are questioned as many of the work-seekers display the tools of their trade to attract work. The terminology of 'roadside work seekers' describes the physical locations of work-seeking but also some of the work-seekers claim artisan trade skills. A mixed method approach is adopted to explore the questions: How do these vulnerable workers develop a vocational identity? What brings the men to the roadside and critically how do they progress?

The findings highlight the lack of participation of contractors in the present skills development system, and the concomitant implication of unattainability of occupational qualifications not only for the roadside work-seekers but many other permanent employees within the construction sector. The small to medium construction contractors require a tailored sector-specific skills development system that allows for the recognition of small segments of skill acquired to be recorded and recognised - an electronic 'badging' or passport system is proposed. The research demonstrates the value of analysing labour law influences on human resource management practices, allied with sociological constructs to provide a holistic and humanising insight into the reality of roadside work-seekers.

Edited excerpts from publication. Show less

This report offers a comprehensive picture of the experience of workers, especially women on location-based and online platforms, drawing on surveys and interviews with some 1,850 workers in various sectors in Kenya. It also provides insights into the business model of the local digital labour platforms in Kenya, examines regulatory developments, and provides some recommendations to ensure that all platform work is decent work.

Published abstract. Show less

The objective of this study is to understand better the algorithmic management practices adopted by regular workplaces. We investigate the degree of penetration and impact of algorithmic management on work organisation, job quality and industrial relations focusing on the logistics and healthcare sectors. The report focuses in these two sectors because the logistics sector has been at the forefront of digital transformation and has been deploying algorithmic management practices in regular workspaces. Similarly, digital technologies are revolutionising the healthcare sector, and there has been a significant rise in investments in digital health in the aftermath of [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic. The research has been conducted in two European countries (Italy and France) and two non-European countries (India and South Africa), allowing for a comparative analysis across countries with different levels of development.

We show that algorithmic management is widely present in traditional sectors, with benefits in terms of streamlining and simplification of work processes and efficiency gains. The implications of these new forms of work for work organisation and working conditions are also discussed. We show significant challenges in terms of potential deterioration of job quality as well as concerns regarding the strong potential for worker surveillance.

Published abstract. Show less

Economic liberalisation, where more liberal economic policies were adopted, promoting private domestic and foreign investment in largely market-led economies, took place in the countries of Southern Africa, including Namibia and Zimbabwe, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This paper provides an analysis of the economic contributions of multinational enterprises (MNEs) to the economies of Namibia and Zimbabwe. The author examines various social aspects and compares the volume, distribution and contributions of MNE capital to the economies of the two countries before and after economic liberalisation. The analysis is presented in two parts, the first examining the case of Namibia and the second, the case of Zimbabwe. Show less

From an international and comparative perspective, young people's access to the labour market is a complex issue with certain contradictory aspects reflecting the level of development of labour law and industrial relations in their respective countries. The papers in this volume aim at providing insights into this issue, taking as a starting point initiatives, policies and legislative measures adopted in different national contexts to tackle youth unemployment.

Most chapters in this publication were presented at the Association for International and Comparative Studies in Labour Law and Industrial Relations (ADAPT) conference held at the University of Bergamo, Italy, on 16-17 December 2010. The international conference, 'Productivity, investment in human capital and the challenge of youth employment: comparative developments and global responses', was dedicated to the challenge of youth employment and aimed at achieving a better understanding of the issue in a global dimension through an interdisciplinary and comparative approach.

The contents are as follows: Foreword / Tayo Fashoyin and Michele Tiraboschi; Youth and the changing world of work / Pietro Manzella and Lisa Rustico; The youth employment challenge: an introduction / Tayo Fashoyin; The challenge of youth employment in the perspective of school-to-work transition / Michele Tiraboschi; Youth unemployment before and after the crisis / Enrico Marelli and Marcello Signorelli; Young workers and the recession / Barbara Grandi and Malcolm Sargeant; The changing nature of youth employment in Australia: how can this be understood? / Erica Smith; Soft skills: a tool for grooming high-performing managers / Thayyullathil Asokan and Mohammed Parakandi; Combinatorial approaches to informal sector human capital investments and youth employment in Sub-Saharan Africa / Benjamin Ogwo; Youth employment: student preferences for mobiflex work / Franz Gellert and Rene Schalk; Training and temporary agency work: a comparative analysis of national regulatory patterns / Lilli Casano; Quality criteria for establishing work-based learning: an evaluation of in-company learning arrangements / Ludger Deitmer; The impact of international mobility on youth employability in VET / Lena Krichewsky; Youth employment and relevant labour market programmes in Hungary / Attila Kun and Balazs Rossu; Issues of the learning through work experience programme for junior high school students: 'the 14-Year-Old's Challenge' in Toyama Prefecture / Satomi Terasaki; Child labour in Tunisia: law and reality / Salma Khaled Slama; From school to work: a comparative study of labour capacity development between Thailand and Vietnam / Phasina Tangchuang; Career support in universities / Mitsuko Uenishi. Show less

This report provides an overview of the contemporary global employment situation and examines the effectiveness of existing policies. Employment is presented as a complex issue, not just in simple terms of income and economic growth, but also in its dependence on national circumstances and institutions. Special consideration is given to issues of employment equality such as freedom of association and workers' participation, and non-discrimination and equal opportunity. In particular, the author demonstrates how ILO standards and recommendations, which effectively set the parameters for national employment strategies, can help improve the global employment situation by facilitating a comprehensive approach to policy issues. The report also contains a section on developing countries in which determinants of growth, labour demand and poverty alleviation are reviewed. The first chapter reviews the implications for national action of the labour standard added by the ILO's Employment Policy Convention (No. 122, 1964) in which ratifying States were to 'declare and pursue as a major goal an active policy designed to promote full, productive and freely chosen employment'. Chapter two examines the global employment situation, both overall and by region, and developments associated with aspects of employment quality. Chapter three focuses on recent policy experience, comparing East and South-East Asia with Latin America and examining the developments of the 1990s in most OECD member countries and Central and Eastern Europe. The final chapter considers aspects of poverty and income distribution, criticisms of existing policies, and the ILO's contribution to socially acceptable outcomes of the economic growth process. Show less

Renewing workers' education focuses on educational forms created by workers for workers. It extends beyond trade unions to include the range of educational initiatives aimed at the working class more generally, including working class women, casual and informal sector workers, migrant workers, and workers' political parties. This book contributes to filling the gap in the South African literature on workers' education and documents the more recent history of workers' education as well as current practices and perspectives, including some international experiences. It explores conceptual tools that may assist in reflecting on and theorising the practice of workers' education and analyses current challenges. This book also seeks to inform future policy and practices on workers' education and is key for those who wish to reinvigorate and contribute to building an alternative future for workers' education.

Edited excerpt from publisher's website.

Following an introduction by the editors, the contents are as follows: Part one, 'Learning from history to understand the present and envision the future', contains the following chapters: Union education as 'structuring a process of appropriation by workers of their own history' / Dinga Sikwebu; Organising, mass mobilisation and worker education: experiences with political worker education in South Africa and Namibia / Kessie Moodley and Herbert Jauch; 'For our children tomorrow': workers making, learning and teaching about history / Jonathan Grossman. Part two, 'Institutionalising workers education: democratising or domesticating?', contains: The formalisation and institutionalisation of workers' education in South Africa: prospects, questions and anxieties / Mphutlane Wa Bofelo; Is there still space for women's only programmes? / Grischelda Hartman; Ploughing back workers' education: a critical review of an education program for trade union women / Vanessa Pillay; The Nigerian Labour Congress: towards systematised trade union education for social transformation in Nigeria / Baba Aye and Valentine Udeh. Part three, 'Educating workers on the local and global periphery', contains: Workers' education and informal workers / Chris Bonner; Learning and leadership in organising temporary agency workers in Canada / Aziz Choudry, Mostafa Henaway and Eric Shragge; Workers' education in the context of precariousness: thinking outside of the union box / Mondli Hlatshwayo; Plays as education: producing useful knowledge for/with precarious workers / Astrid von Kotze. Part four, 'Rethinking workers' education: a conceptual toolbox', contains: Rebuilding workers' education on Marxist foundations: reclaiming ideas of working-class struggle and socialism / Sheri Hamilton; Anarcho-syndicalism and union education in South Africa: a critical evaluation of the tradition of the Congress of South African Trade Unions / Mandy Moussouris and Lucien van der Walt; Workers' education and working-class hegemony: distilling lessons from the past in order to rebuild the future / Linda Cooper. Show less

This paper focuses on changing approaches to worker education within the South African labour movement over the last 20 years. It identifies the distinctive features of this movement in its early years of development, and shows how these were linked to an emancipatory educational discourse with particular notions of how knowledge is constructed, the role of experience in learning and the construction of particular forms of worker identity. It then traces the role of the labour movement in the development of new education and training policies in the context of transition to democracy in the 1990s. It shows how newer training discourses have impacted on union education and shifted the labour movements’ understandings of how and where knowledge is produced, the kinds of knowledge that should be valued, the social purpose of education and the very meaning of worker experience and its significance for learning.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

The present paper analyzes the results of a Survey on Informal Employment that was carried out in the Harare suburb of Glen View in November 2006. While open unemployment among respondents is low, the large majority hold informal jobs. However, while informal employment provides much-needed employment opportunities, working conditions are often poor. The paper highlights a number of decent work deficits: many workers spend excessive hours at work and yet generate incomes that are insufficient to meet their basic needs. Further, informal workers are generally excluded from formal social security systems and lack adequate social protection. And while over a quarter of all formal workers feel represented by the [Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions] ZCTU and other workers’ organizations, only few informal workers believe that any organization or group expresses their concerns. Their most pressing problems include the rising cost of inputs, low incomes, and the confiscation of goods by police. Operation Murambatsvina had a disproportionately negative effect on informal workers and is a significant factor behind the overall deterioration in respondents’ work situation since 2004. By contrast, the recovery programme Operation Garikai reached only very few informal workers. The survey finds no indications that workers enter the informal economy in a deliberate attempt to obtain cost advantages. On the contrary, employers and own account workers in the formal sector generate substantially higher profits than their informal counterparts.

Published abstract. Show less