Page 409 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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380 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

installation of a Government of National upwards from the shop floor inside a mana-
Unity led by the African National Congress gerial human resource, etc. Five percent have
after the first democratic elections of 1994, a been promoted into personnel and training
government most of our subjects would have functions and 5% have found jobs in the
supported. Furthermore, the mass gatherings bureaucracies of the public authorities and
of the trade union movement declined, cul- the government. In addition, 5% have left
tural activity decreased as the trade union voluntarily to join friends or kin in business
movement turned from resistance to strategic ventures. Inter alia, these involve construc-
participation. Finally, there was the collapse tion projects, trading and servicing.
of most social regulation mechanisms that True, 11% have been finding better employ-
buttressed the old influx control and migrant ment opportunities in NGOs but save the two
labour system. involved in literacy and rural outreach pro-
Whereas the period from 1986 to 1992 grammes, the majority is in a precarious situa-
was defined by the patterns of conflict and tion due to the NGO funding crisis.
industry in the society as a whole, with its For 12% the solution has been to return
tragic consequences to human life, the ‘soli- to the countryside. Most of them are combin-
daristic’ project of the trade union movement ing skills that they have learnt in the city:
seemed intact. The changes in managerial selling, sowing, driving, budgeting for infor-
strategies were almost imperceptible, and, mal sector activities and rural cultivation;
upward mobility for this grouping of workers accumulating cattle, growing vegetables and
involved a move from the shop floor to subsisting.
occupy positions in NGOs, or in the higher But 38% lost their jobs. Whereas, 18%
echelons of the liberation movement. have been reabsorbed in all kinds of other
The last two years of this period, though, activities, 20% remain unemployed or under-
betray a rapid institutional change and a dis- employed, relying on others for their income,
persing of some of the ‘solidaristic’ activi- and casual labour.
ties. There is indeed a fragmentation and These figures are only indications of ten-
diffusion of the solidarity that they had been dencies. They show that alongside the soli-
creating throughout the 1980s. daristic patterns of trade union life there is an
Only half have remained in their old jobs equally active process that is animated (not
on the shop floor. Of these, most are shop by the community – 60% were involved in
stewards. They therefore continue with the the community, 5% are involved now) but by
legacies of shop floor democracy and prag- the survival strategies of households and kin-
matic adversarialism. All the men, though, based economic units. Also, despite the con-
have been involved in company-sponsored tinuation of solidaristic language, there is the
training and skilling programmes and exactly drive for self-advancement and self-training
half of them have been attending courses among shop floor people.
after hours on their own initiative. Perhaps
this is where we will find ‘the repro-
grammed’ and ‘reprogramming’ labour force
of the future. CONCLUSION
Moreover, whereas before 1992 upward
mobility was anti-systemic, post-1992 The task at hand seems a daunting one. How
mobility is systematic. Since 1984, some of do we make the public theatre of transforma-
the most talented of the worker creators were tion with its creative energies fit the aptitudes
being absorbed by the ‘mass democratic and attitudes needed for ‘growth’. The obvi-
movement’ inside the country, the growing ous social science answer is a cynical one.
cultural organizations and NGOs to provide We cannot do this, unless the conditions
them with leadership, by now most move that produce it change. Its ‘fragmentation’and