Wage labor, precarious employment, and social inclusion in the making of South Africa's postapartheid transition

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Periodical article

Title:	Wage labor, precarious employment, and social inclusion in the making of South Africa's postapartheid transition
Author:	Barchiesi, Franco
Year:	2008
Periodical:	African Studies Review
Volume:	51
Issue:	2
Pages:	119-142
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	employment labour policy working class 1990-1999
External link:	http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/african_studies_review/v051/51.2.barchiesi.pdf
Abstract:	During South Africa's first decade of democracy, policies of social inclusion and social citizenship have emphasized productive employment and the work ethic in a context of fiscal discipline and public spending thrift. The government's institutional discourse contrasts, however, with a social reality in which most black workers have confronted growing economic precariousness and the inability of waged occupations to provide stable livelihoods above poverty levels. The article discusses workers' responses to these conditions on the basis of case studies of private and public employment investigated from 1999 to 2002. The first case involves manufacturing workers in the East Rand region, the second concerns employees of the waste and roads departments in the Greater Johannesburg Municipal Council. The article finds that official rhetoric about the centrality of productive employment does not reflect the diversity of practices and discourses with which workers address the crisis facing wage labour. Bibliogr., note, sum. [Journal abstract]