Overcoming Difference, Confronting Hegemony: the Unruly Alliances of Social Movement Unionism in Cape Town

Abstract

Service delivery reforms in the municipal sector have, in the post-apartheid era, been politically contested at the local as well as the national level. Processes of deracialisation and development have been accompanied by, and are sometimes hard to separate from, the emergence of a neoliberal model of service delivery (Atkinson, 2003). The move from a ‘statist’ delivery model to a neoliberal one has relegated the local state from a provider of services to merely becoming an ensurer of these, allowing market forces to play a bigger role in state and non-state sectors (McDonald and Smith, 2002). While public sector unions have participated in the local state restructuring, they have also been the starkest critics of these processes when they have been followed by job losses, reduced job security and aggravated working conditions. The adverse effects of the commercialisation of public services are most directly experienced by workers and the poor (Hart, 2002). Hence, community organisations and social movements have also voiced their concerns with the political direction these reforms have taken. Observers have therefore suggested that the post-apartheid era has lain open new occasions for community-oriented unionism. This article looks at the challenges in uniting union politics and community activism around issues of service delivery in Cape Town.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to express gratitude for the help and support received from people in the South African Municipal Workers Union and in the Cape Town Anti-Privatisation Forum. This text has also benefited from engaging feedback from Kristian Stokke and Jonathan Grossman, while they must be held blameless for any errors or misinterpretations.

Notes

School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected]

1. While they both spring out of a SAMWU initiative and bear the same name, the Cape Town APF and the Johannesburg APF are not affiliated organisations.