Postcolonial Workplace Regimes in the Engineering Industry of South Africa

Chapter published in Webster, EC & Von Holdt, K. Beyond the Apartheid Workplace: Case Studies in Transition. Durban: University of KwaZulu Natal Press. The chapter closely examines four factories in the engineering industry of South Africa in order to understand continuities and discontinuities with the ‘apartheid workplace regime' described by Karl von Holdt. In the context of the breakdown of the racial division of labour in the workplace, wage and job colour bars still operate informally. With the racial structure of power in the workplace no longer supported by the state, the language of ‘flexibility' and ‘globalisation' reinforce the arbitrary exercise of power over a layer of contract workers. Migrant labour remains as a key characteristic of the labour market in Southern Africa as such, and this is reinforced by the segmentation of the labour market into ‘permanent' and ‘contract' employees. While the segregation of facilities according to ‘race' is no longer sanctioned by the state, workers experience segregation along company lines of hierarchy as ‘racial'. The location of the industry in the industrial geography of apartheid is replicated in the context of Southern Africa, specifically because of the state formation of Swaziland, and the resemblance this has to the former Bantustans under apartheid. The concept ‘post-colonial workplace regime' is developed in order to describe and understand these transitions. The book can be ordered online.