Overview

Examines the political role of trade unions in seven African countries (Nigeria, South Africa, Namibia, Uganda, Ghana, Senegal and Zimbabwe) and the various ways in which they seek to influence political parties and the state. It provides a finely tuned critique of the impact achieved by different strategies, within the context of both the unique forces shaping them and the looming shadow of the new global economy. The contributions also provide new insights into the relationship of trade union action to the politics of national liberation.

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9780796923066

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Bjorn Beckman is a professor of Political Science at Stockholm University in Sweden. He has written extensively on African trade unions, state and civil society, especially on Nigerian union politics. He co-authored Union power in the Nigerian textile industry with Gunilla Andrae (Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala 1998, CRD, Kano 1999) and co-edited Labour regimes and liberalization: The restructuring of state-society relations in Africa with L.M. Sachikonye (University of Zimbabwe publications, Harare 2001). He is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Review of African Political Economy. Sakhela Buhlungu is a professor of Sociology at University of Johannesburg and formerly a co-director of the Sociology of Work Unit (SWOP), University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He has a unionist background and contributes regularly to the field of South African labour studies, including as an editor of Trade unions and democracy: Cosatu workers' political attitudes in South Africa and as a joint editor of State of the nation: South Africa 2005-2006, both HSRC Press 2006. Lloyd M. Sachikonye is a professor in the Department of Agrarian and Labour Studies in the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Zimbabwe, Harare. He has written extensively on labour and politics in Zimbabwe and Africa, including Democracy, civil society and the state: Social movements in southern Africa (SAPES Books, Harare, 1995), Restructuring or de-industrialising? (Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, 1999) and the collection edited with Beckman mentioned above. He is a frequent contributor to the Review of African Political Economy.||Sakhela Buhlungu is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and the Deputy Director of the Sociology of Work Unit (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. John Daniel has taught at universities in the USA, Swaziland, Netherlands and South Africa, and spent six years in the 1980s as the Africa editor of Zed Books in London. Roger Southall is a Distinguished Research Fellow of the HSRC and was formerly Professor of Political Studies, Rhodes University. Jessica Lutchman is a Researcher in the Democracy and Governance Research Programme at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in South Africa.

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