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Women in developing countries are more exposed to the adverse effects of climate change. We develop a structural model to study the long-term impacts of climate and socioeconomic changes on labour supply and the pay gap between male/female and high-skilled/low-skilled labour. We calibrate our model with empirical evidence on the impacts of increasing temperatures on labour availability in two general economic sectors with high and low exposure to rising temperatures. Using five waves of nationally representative micro-survey data in South Africa from 2008 to 2017, we find that while high-skilled labour availability is insensitive to climate change, higher temperatures have a negative impact on working hours of low-skilled labour specially among women in the high-exposure sector. We incorporate these findings in an overlapping generations (OLG) model to show that climate-induced reduction in labour availability increases the relative wages of low-skilled female labour and reduces the wage gap between male and female labour in the high-exposure sector, and between high-skilled and low-skilled female labour, in general. Considering climate change damages both on sectoral productivity and on labour availability, we project that by the end of the century, the output per adult will drop by about 11 percentage points under a severe climate scenario. This calls for more targeted adaptation policies that build on the potential benefits of climate change in reducing gender inequality and empowering women to take up more active roles in designing and implementing such policies at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of waste work have largely focused on labourers who collect and process materials in exchange for money, including informal waste reclaimers and those now working precariously due to neoliberalization. Researchers have also drawn attention to who sorts waste in and beyond the household. Here we examine voluntary clean-ups as well as waste education in South Africa. State discourse encourages people to engage with the wastescape without framing this participation as work. Yet such engagements require people to act, and changing existing practices and expectations of who does what (and who is paid what) to make waste flow. We argue that understanding such activities as infrastructural helps to explain how the state seeks to enrol citizens into waste configurations, and understanding them as labour enables more capacious politics and claims to waste’s value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aims: Extensive research focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of various positions throughout active second stage labour, but there is limited focus on midwives' practice. This study aimed to explore midwives' practice of maternal positions throughout the active phase of second stage labour. Methods: An integrative review of three databases was carried out for research papers published between 2015 and 2022. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis and synthesis. Results: Five eligible research papers were included. There were four key findings: maternal positions practised by midwives, midwives as the prime decision maker, midwives' personal convenience and comfort, and barriers to practising maternal positions. Conclusions: Midwives were seen as prime decision makers, who hindered informed decision making on maternal positions during active second stage labour. Inadequate knowledge, skills and confidence were barriers to practice and attributed to midwives adopting positions that were convenient and comfortable for themselves. Strategies are needed to enhance practice through review and evaluation of current clinical settings, regular updates to evidence-based practice and refreshing essential midwifery skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2020 emerged as a 'crisis in the world of work'. Reflections upon how the pandemic would accelerate pervasive joblessness and changes in the workplace abounded, while academics and technocrats alike have translated its predicaments as a catalyst for a rapidly coming postwork future. Using illustrative vignettes from our own work on labour in South Africa and Romania, we discuss how the current labour/technology crisis has moved along structural axes of inequality and disempowerment in the world of work. We suggest that, as historians documenting the shifting nature of work and its relationship with technology, we should go against the grain when chronicling the current pandemic as a series of dramatic shifts and spectacular snapshots, and affirm non-eventful ways of writing history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since achieving high economic growth in South Africa persists as one of the ultimate serious development issues, it is critical to examine factors that influence South African economic growth. Using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL), the study was conducted to analyse the variables influencing South African economic growth from 1990 to 2021. The study discovers that technological progress, labour, power supply, and capital formation are all associated significantly with South African economic growth. According to the research, in the long run, labour and technological progress coefficients are positively correlated with economic growth, whereas power supply and human capital are negatively correlated. These findings have significant policy implications. According to the study's findings, it is advised that appropriate policies be created to support the industries that help South Africa's economy flourish. Strategies to be endorsed should include those that captivate such as improving the quality of education to increase human capital and greater investment mostly in the infrastructure of the electricity supply industry are crucial for resolving the issue of electricity supply since doing so would force South Africa to experience long-term economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aim: Midwives play an important role in assisting women to cope with the initial trauma of perinatal loss, but their own coping and support needs can be overlooked. The purpose of the study was to explore the coping behaviours and support needs of midwives caring for women with perinatal loss. Methods: A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive design was used. Data were collected using semi-structured one-on-one interviews with 13 purposively sampled participants from the Nelson Mandela Bay Health District. Results: Three themes emerged concerning midwives' coping mechanisms in relation to perinatal loss, their views on support from management and the need for psychological and emotional support. Conclusions: The participants felt the need for unit-based psychological and emotional support. They called for the development of a protocol for midwives to manage perinatal loss events. They felt that the layout of the labour wards needed to be redesigned and that the problem of staff shortages needed to be urgently addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study assesses the impact of the live sheep export trade on the South African economy. The study used a recent South African Social Accounting Matrix and a partial equilibrium model. The results are mixed. On a positive note, the higher the demand for live sheep exports, the higher the prices and the more significant the economic impact. On the other hand, South Africa loses valueadding opportunities such as output from abattoirs, including hides and skin, offal, head, and consumable internal organs, and employment when live lambs are exported and slaughtered in destination markets. These findings help policymakers to develop appropriate mitigation strategies to balance the advantages and disadvantages of live sheep export. A nationwide analysis may miss some of the local costs and benefits of live sheep exports. Future research can also be done in selected major areas that produce sheep in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Perinatal Problem Identification Programme (PPIP) is used to rule out the avoidable and nonavoidable causes of negative maternal and perinatal outcomes through file audits. Perinatal Problem Identification Programme serves as a tool for midwives and obstetricians to pinpoint missed opportunities that could prevent avoidable causes of negative perinatal outcomes. Aim: The study aimed to describe and explore the avoidable causes of negative perinatal outcomes in Bojanala District through the lens of the midwife. Setting: This study was conducted in the two selected facilities in the Bojanala District in the North West Province of South Africa. Methods: The study derived from a larger study that focused on midwives' experiences of obstetric triage in the Bojanala District. A qualitative, exploratory and descriptive research design was used with purposive sample of nine midwives. Participants had over 5 years of clinical midwifery experience and were employed in the Bojanala District. Semi-structured interviews were utilised with data analysed using Colaizzi's descriptive method of data analysis. Results: Three major themes with eight subthemes emerged. Midwives noted space constraints, medicine and medical supply constraints, and constraints in availability of medical equipment. Access to identified constraints would enable prompt and appropriate management. Conclusion: The study highlighted the experience of midwives in accessing needed space, medicines, medical supplies and equipment, potentially impacting negative perinatal outcomes. Contribution: This study provides insight into administratively related avoidable causes of negative perinatal outcomes through the lens of frontline maternity care providers -- midwives. Findings should be of particular utility to health service managers working to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the degree of spatial dependence of unemployment on neighbouring economies with possible implications for cross-border community development initiatives. The local municipalities within the KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa are used as a case study. Spatial econometric techniques are employed that incorporate dependence between regions in close geographical proximity. Disaggregated data and knowledge about the dynamics at a sub-regional level are usually unavailable for designing employment policies, especially for regional economies in under-developed countries. The results suggest an absence of spatial unemployment clustering and autocorrelation between neighbouring economies. The absence of externalities implies that little mutual dependence exists between adjacent economies, and thereforemunicipal unemployment patterns can be viewed as spatially random. The economy of a region is therefore fundamentally heterogeneous in that its unemployment rates are determined and influenced by its unique and diverse factors rather than neighbouring unemployment trends or patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: People living with disabilities are often women and the elderly and those from low-income families. There is paucity in research on women with mobility disabilities' experiences of maternity care during pregnancy, labour and puerperium in Eswatini. Aim: To explore and describe women with mobility disabilities' experiences of maternity care during pregnancy, labour and puerperium in Eswatini. Setting: The study was conducted in the Hhohho and Manzini regions in Eswatini, between March 2019 and July 2019. Methods: A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual research design was followed. Purposive sampling and snowballing techniques were used to sample women with mobility disabilities to participate in the research. Individual interviews were conducted, and Giorgi's method of data analysis was used. Results: Women with mobility disabilities experienced midwives as being brutal, unsupportive and judgemental. In addition, participants reported several maternity care challenges related to a lack of protocol and infrastructure, and they needed to be cared for by experienced midwives during pregnancy, labour and puerperium. Conclusion: Women with mobility disabilities experienced various challenges during pregnancy, labour and puerperium in Eswatini. There is a need to develop guidelines to facilitate support and holistic maternity care for these women. Contribution: The study contributed to the scientific knowledge of women with mobility disabilities' experiences of maternity care during pregnancy, labour and puerperium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Obstetric triage (OBT) is a standardised procedure, which plays a vital role in identifying women with obstetric risks upon admission for labour worldwide. In the last few years, considerable attention has been paid to perinatal problem identification programmes, and it has been determined that the inconsistent use of OBT delays midwives' responses to both existing and potential clinical problems amongst women in labour. This delay results in negative and serious perinatal outcomes that could have been prevented. This study was conducted to explore and describe midwives' experiences with OBT in Bojanala district. Aim: This study aimed to explore and describe midwives' experiences with OBT in Bojanala district. Setting: This study was conducted in Bojanala district of the North West Province. Two public healthcare facilities were selected where midwifery care and OBT services are rendered. Methods: A qualitative, descriptive, explorative research design was followed. Nine purposefully sampled midwives participated in a one-on-one in-depth interview. Data were analysed using Collaizi's descriptive method based on the themes and categories that emerged. Results: Three themes emerged. Midwives experienced the OBT tool to be inadequate; and that the low staff number contributes to an imbalance in the midwife--patient ratio. Midwives were also dissatisfied with less support they receive from their management. Conclusion: The study highlighted midwives' experiences of the use of OBT, as presented through their lived experiences. The midwives experienced challenges, which hindered them from practicing OBT to the best of their abilities. Contribution: The study highlighted challenges experienced by midwives regarding OBT, which directly influence the outcomes of pregnancy and labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is not about work or labour itself, and how it changes historically in South Africa (from pastoral, to agricultural and industrial; native labour, wage labour, migrant labour etc.), but about how the meaning of ‘work’ and ‘labour’ itself changes. What we want to suggest, is that an ‘original’ meaning of the tasks/duties associated with ‘work’ was ‘woman’: ukusebenza. What men did, does not constitute ‘work’ but something else entirely: raiding, moving, occasional, going etc.: ukuphangela. It is in the latter term, ukuphangela, that the term ‘raid’ emerges, and the argument draws on this notion and meaning of raid to underscore the re-thinking of gender, the subject and her relation to work, and history. The paper operates in two registers, focusing on the historic meanings of work and labour in the Eastern Cape and tracing lateral translations of these meanings into East London in the 1950s. It argues that in re-thinking meanings of labour and work through multiple temporalities, and through the contested meanings of the isiXhosa terms ukusebenza and ukuphangela, these word fragments are read as ‘entryways to a wordliness’ that puts lateral universals and temporalities of work back into circulation. As such, we pose the question rather, following Anne Kelk Mager and Helen Bradford, of whether it is gender (and what it means to be a man or a woman) that is at the forefront not only of class and race struggles, but of what comes to constitute the meaning of ‘work’, a concept whose provenance and meaning changes, as we have noted, with the making of modernity, industrialisation/capitalism, and the ‘Europeanisation’ of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A little-known feature of the vast migrant labour system that supplied South Africa's gold-mining industry was the Deferred Pay Interest Fund. For much of the 20th century, a portion of the wages owed to African mine workers was deferred and remitted to them only at the end of their contracts. This is well-known, but what happened to the interest that accumulated on these deferred wages remains virtually unknown. Mine workers did not receive this interest; it was, instead, deposited into a fund controlled by the mining industry. This article examines the operations of this fund in the Transkei in the context of the crisis in the migrant labour system precipitated by newly independent states refusing to supply further migrant labour to South Africa. This prompted the Chamber of Mines to reorient labour recruitment towards the South African bantustans, and the Transkei quickly became the most important source of labour for the mines in the 1970s and 1980s. Although the fund had a mandate to spend on welfare projects in labour-sending regions, we argue that patterns of spending clearly show how it was used to support the reproduction of the migrant labour system. Payments were used as patronage for local elites, upon whom recruitment depended, and for distributing propaganda for the mining industry. In contrast, payments were consistently directed away from education for able-bodied students, because education would reduce the pool of unskilled labour on which the gold industry relied. Money that, arguably, rightfully belonged to mine workers from the Transkei was used to perpetuate their dependence upon migrant labour to the mines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conducts an analysis of labour market dynamics in South Africa during the initial period of lockdown, from the end of March to the end of April 2020, using the first wave of the NIDS‐CRAM (2020) survey. Within our sample of over 6,000 adults aged 18 to 59, we found that there was a very large decrease in employment. The fraction of the sample that was conventionally classified as employed decreased from 57% in February to 48% in April. If we further exclude temporarily absent workers, which we term "furloughed" employees, this fraction decreases further to 38%. Thus, about one out of every three employed people in our sample either lost their job or did not work and received no wages during April. This has extremely large implications for poverty and welfare. We further analyse the labour market by comparing across demographic groups as defined by race, by gender, by age groups, by geographic areas and by education levels. The over‐arching finding from this analysis is that the job losses were not uniformly distributed amongst the different groups. In particular, groups who have always been more vulnerable – such as women, African/Blacks, youth and less educated groups – have been disproportionately negatively affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Midwives are essential to timely, effective, family-centred care. In South Africa, patients have often expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of midwifery care. Negative interpersonal relationships with caregivers, lack of information, neglect and abandonment were consistent complaints. Less is known about how midwives experience providing care. Aim: This research explored and described the experiences of midwives in providing care to labouring women in varied healthcare settings. Setting: Midwives practicing in the Gauteng province, South Africa, in one of three settings: private hospitals, public hospitals or independent maternity hospital. Methods: A convenience sample of midwives (N = 10) were interviewed. An exploratory and descriptive design, with individual semi-structured interviews conducted, asked a primary question: 'How is it for you to be a midwife in South Africa?' Transcribed interviews were analysed using thematic coding. Results: Five themes were found: proud to be a midwife, regulations and independent function, resource availability, work burden and image of the midwife. Conclusion: Midwives struggle within systems that fail to allow independent functioning, disallowing a voice in making decisions and creating change. Regardless of practice setting, midwives expressed frustration with policies that prevented utilisation consistent with scope of practice, as well as an inability to practice the midwifery model of care. Those in public settings expressed concern with restricted resource appropriation. Similarly, there is clear need to upscale midwifery education and to establish care competencies to be met in providing clinical services. Contribution: This research provides evidence of the midwifery experience with implications for needed health policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Anthropologica is the property of CASCA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

With the worsening political and socio-economic climate of Zimbabwe, migration to South Africa continues unabated. Research has already proven that migration is a result of many push and pull factors. The prospect to improve one's life and that of one's kin remains a key motivation for migration. What needs to be clearly articulated, in so far as Zimbabwean migration to South Africa is concerned, is the level of economic stability of Zimbabwean workers within the South African job market. This is the aspect addressed in this article, which contends that most of the Zimbabwean migrant workers in Johannesburg, South Africa are employed in careerless and unstable jobs that are precarious. While precariousness exists everywhere, and in varying levels, I argue that the migrant status is a devalued identity that leads to exclusion from certain basic rights at work and worsens the situation for most unskilled and semi-skilled Zimbabweans. Zimbabwean workers possess certain characteristics that both create advantages and disadvantages for them as they interact with employers. Employers know this fully well and capitalise on these characteristics, especially the lack of documentation needed to work and stay in South Africa. The precarious nature of Zimbabwean migrants is an outcome of a combination of various factors which are: a very strict migration legal framework, institutionalised xenophobia, capitalists whose interests are in lowering labour costs and thus go for cheap Zimbabwean labourers, desperate Zimbabwean workers who would accept anything offered because it is believed to be far much better than what they would receive 'back home' and a sending government (Zimbabwean) which does not seem to care enough about the situation of migrants who are mainly viewed negatively for having left the country in the first place. The precariousness of Zimbabwean migrants is both as much a product as it is also a factor of a vicious cycle of precariousness. The intersection of the migrant status (whether documented or undocumented but even worse for the undocumented) with low educational qualifications (for most migrants studied), race (black), poverty and desperation creates barriers and constraints for most Zimbabwean migrants rendering their lives quite precarious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farm businesses producing fruit for the fresh fruit market require significant amounts of labour, especially for harvesting. In other agricultural industries, like cropping, the reliance on labour has reduced because machines have replaced labour. At the moment, machines do not replace labour for horticultural businesses supplying the fresh fruit market, consequently the labour cost is significant. However, machines, like a mobile platform, may improve the efficiency of labour or reduce the need for particular skills. Mobile platforms are not new and have been a consideration for fruit growers since the 1970s, but rising costs of labour has increased interest in investing in them. Research in the United States, Europe and South Africa into the benefits of mobile platforms has found, in some cases, that using a platform can improve productivity and occupational health and safety, but the findings are inconclusive. The aim of this investigation was to identify the labour needs for Australian growers supplying apples to the fresh fruit market and to investigate and form a view about the role a mobile platform has against other tools that can be used by growers to assist labour. This study has found that the 'best' combination of equipment, machinery and labour to use to assist in the main production tasks of horticultural businesses depends on the many and varied characteristics of the business, the segment of the market the farmer sells into, the operator and the skills and cost of labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The substitutability of the economic institution of slave labour has often been assumed as a given. Apart from some capital investment to retrain slaves for a different task, essentially their labour could be substituted for any other form of labour. This paper questions that assumption by using a longitudinal study of the Graaff-Reinet district on the eastern frontier of South Africa's Cape Colony. We calculate the Hicksian elasticity of complementarity coefficients for each year of a 22-year combination of cross-sectional tax datasets (1805–1828) to test whether slave labour was substitutable for other forms of labour. We find that slave labour, indigenous labour and settler family labour were not substitutable over the period of the study. This lends credence to the finding that slave and family labour were two different inputs in agricultural production. Indigenous khoe labour and slave labour remain complements throughout the period of the study even when khoe labour becomes scarce after the frontier conflicts. We argue that the non-substitutability of slave labour was due to the settlers' need to acquire labourers with location-specific skills such as the indigenous khoe, and that slaves may have served a purpose other than as a source of unskilled labour, such as for artisan skills or for collateral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:  Intrauterine foetal death (IUFD) is a traumatic event leading to substantial grief reactions with a variety of experiences in an expectant woman. After delivery, these experiences have shown to impact the mother's psychological well-being, where she experiences post-traumatic stress, sadness, anxiety and depression. The psychosomatic experiences before labour commenced are not known., Objectives:  This study explored the psychosomatic (mind-body connection) experiences of women who had an IUFD before labour commenced in rural areas of Limpopo province, South Africa., Method:  A qualitative approach with an explorative descriptive design was carried out among all 10 consented participants who were selected using a purposive sampling technique. The sample consisted of women who delivered an IUFD as reflected by the hospital register from the selected hospitals. Data were collected at the participants' homes through in-depth individual interviews guided by one open-ended central question as follows, 'Please share with me your experiences of IUFD before you went into labour', and analysed using Tesch's open coding method., Results:  Two themes reflecting the psychosomatic (mind-body connection) experiences of women who had an IUFD emerged from the analysis. The themes are danger alerts and emotional responses., Conclusion:  This qualitative study revealed that women could relate a lack of or decreased foetal movement as the danger alert or warning sign that the baby was in danger before labour commenced. Upon noticing that something was wrong with the baby, a message was sent to the women's minds, which equally affected and activated their emotional dimensions. An investigation regarding the kind of support needed by women after being informed of an IUFD is recommended.

The ordinary archive of the racially oppressed in South Africa offers a critical lens through which to interrogate notions of resistance, subjectivities and freedom. This paper considers these questions by examining the phenomenon that is the annual Spring Queen pageant which, for more than 46 years, has proffered a potential real-life 'Cinderella' experience to the poorly-paid, industrious women of the Western Cape's clothing and textile trade. Initiated by their union, the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers' Union (SACTWU) in the late 1970s as a response to worker agitation, the social significance of the pageant runs incontrovertibly deeper than a one-night spectacle. Despite a dearth of subject-specific formal research, this paper draws on available literature analysing the impact of apartheid on culture and society in South Africa, along with extensive relevant media coverage of the Spring Queen pageant, and personal interviews with those involved and impacted. It goes beyond describing the experiences of working class 'coloured' women who contributed to the anti-apartheid struggle through their union activities. It also highlights how an enduring annual gala event has afforded the 'invisible' clothing production line workers who underpin a multi-billion rand South African export industry an opportunity to envision a yet-to-be realised freedom, while reflecting the power and resilience of the ordinary to transform in extraordinary times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: An evidence-based practice suggests that the birth position adopted by women during labour has a significant impact on the maternal and neonatal birth outcomes. The birth positions are endorsed by guidelines of maternity care in South Africa, which documented that women in labour should be allowed to select the birth position of their choice, preferably alternative birth positions (including upright, kneeling, squatting and lateral positions) during labour. Thus, the lithotomy birth position should be avoided. However, despite available literature, midwives routinely position women in the lithotomy position during normal vertex births, which causes several adverse maternal outcomes (namely prolonged labour, postpartum haemorrhage) and adverse neonatal outcomes (such as foetal asphyxia and respiratory compromise). Aim: The aim was to explore and describe factors hindering midwives' utilisation of alternative birth positions during labour in a selected public hospital. Setting: A public hospital in the Tshwane district, Pretoria were used in the study. Methods: This study used the qualitative, exploratory and descriptive research design. This design gathered quality information on factors hindering midwives' utilisation of alternative birth positions during labour in a selected public hospital. Results: The study revealed the following themes: (1) midwives' perceptions on alternative use of birth positions and (2) barriers to utilisation of alternative birth positions. The themes were discussed and validated through the use of a literature review. Conclusion: The lack of skills and training during the midwifery undergraduate and postgraduate programme contributes to the midwives being incompetent to utilise alternative birth positions during clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the spring of 1854, rumours of an impending Mfengu revolt swept through the Cape Colony of South Africa. Twenty years prior, Mfengu people had entered the Colony in hopes of securing land and wealth. In the ensuing two decades, Mfengu farmers, labourers, and soldiers had established a reputation as allies of the Colony. Although rumours of the rebellion quickly subsided, they were reinvigorated by the arrival of a new governor, Sir George Grey. Grey amplified the rumours of a Mfengu revolt to justify sweeping changes to colonial policy. In his response to the Mfengu crisis, Grey proposed to subjugate African people by absorbing them into expanding colonial institutions. Correspondence between colonial officials from September to December 1854 demonstrates how the Mfengu crisis served as a vehicle for the implementation of Grey's policies. The extension of these policies ultimately contributed to the loss of African autonomy in the Cape Colony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 16 August 2012, a protracted strike at a platinum mine in Marikana, South Africa, culminated in the killing of 34 mineworkers by local security forces. Some viewed this tragedy through the lens of South Africa’s apartheid past, recalling such events as the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. Others saw this episode as the latest cycle of angry protest and violent repression stemming from heightened inequality and poverty under global capitalism. This paper explores a set of institutional factors that occupy the middle ground between these two narratives about the massacre at Marikana. At the national level, despite progressive labour regulations and a long-standing alliance between the leading trade union (COSATU) and the ruling African National Congress, institutional channels for social dialogue and collective bargaining were less effective than expected given COSATU's inability to criticize policies focused on business-led growth at the expense of the social protection of workers. At the sectoral level, gigantic platinum companies faced with falling commodity prices sought to limit losses by planning retrenchments and limiting wage increases, triggering repeated and sometimes violent wildcat strikes, especially when workers’ grievances were set aside by local representatives of the COSATU-affiliated National Union of Mineworkers. The argument may be seen as a labour-focused variant of Huntington’s ‘gap hypothesis’: workers’ militancy has grown as existing institutional frameworks for ensuring labour peace have failed to effectively channel the frustrations of workers most in need of social protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mid 1880s a little-known photographer named Robert Harris produced a series of albumen prints showing the stages of body searching that black labourers in De Beers diamond mines were obliged to undergo by state ordinance enacted in 1883. The original photographs surfaced briefly in the saleroom in 2007 but have since disappeared. Two sets of copies survive. Bearing in mind the history of documentary photography in South Africa, this article examines the historical and textual significance of this series of photographs in the context of the history of mining and discusses the imperatives and ethics of locating, researching, and publishing controversial imagery in the Internet age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do people work? In South Africa, where over 50 per cent of working age adults do not have jobs, this question drives to the heart of efforts to encourage employers to create jobs and workers to persist in costly job searches. Much scholarship on unemployment focuses on getting wages right, but employers and employees cite many non-monetary reasons for their employment-related decisions. Popular discourses have over-simplified and moralised work-related decisions to reinforce problematic stereotypes about supposed ‘lazy’ workers. This article analyses ethnographic fieldwork in peri-urban KwaZulu-Natal to identify a category of motivations for work-related decisions that both employers and employees emphasised: ‘right’ relationships. By identifying differences between the two groups’ moralities of appropriate relationships, and the factors inhibiting each group from achieving such relationships, this article points to causes of and potential cures for high unemployment as well as racial, ethnic, and class tensions that infuse discussions of unemployment. This article offers new ways of thinking about employment that move beyond minimum wage adjustments, job-creation incentives for employers, and skills training for would-be workers by identifying motivating factors that are too often ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A 2012 audit on labour epidural analgesia rates in Tygerberg Hospital (TBH) revealed that only 2.2% of labouring parturients received epidural analgesia. This unacceptably low number necessitated a dedicated epidural service that was subsequently initiated in June 2014 by the Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care to improve the quality of care in labouring patients. Methods: A retrospective follow-up audit was conducted from June 2014 to December 2015 and included data on epidural rates, indications, complications and patient satisfaction. Comparison was made with the 2012 data to evaluate the impact of change on care provided and to recommend future changes. Results: Labour epidural rates improved to 5.16% for the audit period, with 2014 and 2015 rates of 7.44% and 3.89% respectively. Daytime epidurals doubled in 2014/2015 and complication rates decreased from 32.3% in 2012 to 16%. Primary indications for epidural analgesia included pre-eclampsia, morbid obesity, primigravidity and cardiac conditions. Although 99.8% of the complications were minor and transient, one fatality was reported during the audit period. This mortality emphasises the importance of team training in every aspect of epidural analgesia, so that the desired increase in epidural rate is associated with safe practice. Conclusions: An important increase in epidural rates as well as a decrease in minor complications was observed. The fatality indicates that the expansion of the service should be accompanied by in-depth training of the entire team, so that the process becomes routine and complications are reduced. A fatal drug error, a ‘never event’, should not occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship laments the growing fragmentation of the working class due to flexible labour regimes and unemployment. This paper examines an emerging effort in South Africa to counter this fragmentation: the United Front project, initiated and led by the National Union of Metalworkers South Africa (NUMSA). Drawing on 74 interviews conducted at two different NUMSA-led protests in Johannesburg, the analysis unpacks two sets of tensions. One set of tensions revolves around class politics, which pertain to the divide between unionized workers in relatively stable employment, and impoverished communities ravaged by unemployment. The other set of tensions revolves around party politics, including divisions with respect to the United Front's opposition to the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC). Each dimension reveals both crucial sources of solidarity and potential obstacles, showing that forging a broad working-class unity in the current period is complex, but not impossible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an investigation of social policy discourse with specific regard to the ways in which interventions aimed at addressing poverty and social inequality have conceptualised welfare, social assistance and social security. It argues that the post-1994 African National Congress (ANC)-led government has placed a priority on waged employment and labour market participation as the preferred route to social inclusion and social security, to the detriment of universal redistributive programmes not associated with paid work. The state's promotion of a form of social disciplining centred on wage labour has clashed with the material reality of spiralling unemployment and the proliferation of precarious and unprotected occupations. This disjuncture raises important questions concerning the capacity of the new institutional dispensation to govern South Africa's long transition - or even the ability of the ANC to justify their policy decisions to their core constituency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the centre of the conservation enterprise are the interactions of various actors who display a great deal of environmental ethic. Private landowners have embraced this ethic to protect their property rights and increase land value while contributing to the conservation of nature and to rural development. In this paper I draw examples from the lowveld in South Africa to argue that there is a seamless connection between philanthropy, labour and land claims in private nature reserves, and that post-apartheid conditions have enabled such a connection to emerge. Philanthropy allows private owners to structure and control labour, while directly or indirectly affecting the trajectory of land claims in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Revue Tiers Monde is the property of Librairie Armand Colin and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

By the early 1970s the permanent, urbanised African working class in manufacturing had reached a critical mass. Frustrated by poor wages, pressed by an inflationary economy, and barred from state-sanctioned trade unions, African workers engaged in a series of explosive, spontaneous, strikes in Natal in 1973. Faced with this shop-floor turmoil, the South African business class recognized a looming crisis in the labour field, bemoaning a shortage of skilled labour, poor productivity, and a lack of mechanisms for negotiating with an increasingly restive African working class. Nevertheless, they did not want to accept fully recognised trade unions for Africans. Instead, in response to the strike wave, employers and the state expanded the existing system of works and liaison committees, which pretended to give official voice to African workers’ shop-floor grievances while refusing them the right to state-sanctioned unionisation and collective bargaining mechanisms. South African nationalist historiography regards these committees as collaborative structures, designed to co-opt workers. This article rejects that notion, and argues instead that Black workers and their allies used the committee structure to build a shop-floor infrastructure that emerged in the independent Black trade union movement in the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article draws a parallel between the Apartheid regime in South Africa and the post-IRCA immigration regime in the USA. I argue that both regimes were organised around Apartheid Policing, which may be defined as a legal process consisting of three mutually reinforcing mechanisms:differentiationof migrants into non-citizen insiders with legal residence rights and non-citizen outsiders without them;stabilisationof migrants as permanent or long-term residents, enabling the growth of the migrant workforce; andmarginalisationof migrants as politically vulnerable outsiders, including exploitation at work. But the two regimes were supported by different political and ideological apparatuses. While placing a disproportionate burden on Latino migrants, the post-IRCA immigration regime differed from the Apartheid regime in that it was not organised around an explicit racial hierarchy, and offered non-citizens a greater array of rights. As a result, Apartheid Policing under the post-IRCA immigration regime is potentially more politically sustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues for viewing debates about consumption – here specifically focused on retail spaces – as attachments to fantasies about participation. It uses the figure of the service worker as index, tracking how she appears and disappears at different historical moments in South African public discussions on consumption. Discussing four moments of debate where the service worker is represented in relation to commitments to consumption, the article argues that the figure stands in (variously) for what is at stake in claims to service and retail spaces. Paying attention to the shifting and sometimes shadowy figure of this worker in public debate, we can begin to comment on the longer history of ambivalence toward consumption, linked to labour, as well as recent triumphant claims to access to the market as sphere of democracy, for instance, in Wal-Mart's entry to South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the 1770s the Cape became an important destination for slaves from East Africa. This trade ended in 1808 with the implementation of the Act of Abolition but was quickly replaced by the importation of freed slaves seized from ships going to South America, who were subjected to 14-year apprenticeships. International treaties aimed at suppressing the slave trade brought an end to this forced immigration in 1818 but did little to curb the trans-Atlantic trade that soon turned Mozambique into a major supplier of slaves. With the rapid growth in the demand for slaves in Brazil and the Mascarenes Islands, southern Mozambique came to rival the northern ports in this trade. As the trade mushroomed, the Portuguese administration and its personnel quickly came to depend on the profits of this commerce. The emancipation of slaves at the Cape was followed by the entry of a new wave of freed slaves as the Royal Navy started to stop and search Portuguese ships in the southern hemisphere. By the 1860s pressure on the Portuguese shifted from halting the slave trade to demanding an end to slavery as an institution. In the following decade the Portuguese found a new market for the sale of Mozambique's labour in the British colonies of South Africa. The terms of service of these contracted, migrant labourers retained many aspects of the earlier systems that had brought forced immigrants and slaves to the Cape. This experience would exercise an important influence on the development of labour relations in South Africa for the next hundred years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the colonial vision of Southern Africa, rural people were seen as both underemployed and self-sustaining even while processes of commodification dependent on the exploitation of their labour were producing spatially and racially marked inequalities of wealth and consumption and related patterns of health and affliction. Affliction sometimes reflected denial of access to formal health provisioning, but it was also produced by the conditions of labour, including capital's largely successful struggle to externalize responsibility for the reproduction of its workers. This paper discusses various moments in the making of affliction in the region: the development of endemic tuberculosis, the resurgence of malaria, famine-related paralysis and HIV/ AIDS. These cases illustrate how affliction has been shaped by the weight of long-term structural relations of class in the organization of labour and by the contingent outcomes of immediate political struggles. They suggest that efforts to improve health in Southern Africa today must address persistent structural patterns that underlie the causes of the incidence of disease; these are also relevant to questions of land reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The City of Johannesburg has developed through the entire life-cycle of the mining industry. In its early years, its development was tied to the varying, but generally upward, fortunes of the mining industry. During this time, gold mining in Johannesburg, and along the Witwatersrand, propelled the growth of South Africa's national economy into a phase of self-sustained development, and created an integrated labour market across southern Africa. It also played a key role in shaping the racial oligarchy that dominated South Africa until the fall of apartheid in the 1990s. However, gold was eventually to decline, first in the areas around Johannesburg, and then elsewhere. The growth of Johannesburg, however, continued and the urban economy became increasingly diversified and flexible. This growth seemed divorced from mining but was, in fact, deeply rooted in the history of mining. The mining industry played an intimate role in the development of the manufacturing sector and also in the emergence of financial services; which is currently the leading economic sector in Johannesburg. These economic changes are represented in continuous evolution of the spatial form of the city. Currently the physical legacy of mining is understood mainly in terms of its deleterious environmental consequences, including acid mine drainage, with the long and profound impact of mining on the patterning of urban growth largely forgotten. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The liberation struggle in South Africa that eventually brought the apartheid state to its knees had its roots in the workers' movement that emerged in the early 1970s. Beginning in the 1980s, this movement shifted from a ‘workerist’ orientation around shop floor issues to a ‘popularist’ articulation with the broader liberation struggle – a shift embodied most fully in the transformation of FOSATU into COSATU in 1985. In the sugar industry of KwaZulu-Natal, this ideological shift opened up serious conflict among workers who had previously co-existed without quarrel. Workers from rural Zululand tended to reject the liberal-egalitarian tenets of the ‘national democratic revolution’ promoted by Sweet Food, the sectoral COSATU affiliate. Instead, they sought refuge in an organisation known as National Union, which – following elements of the workerist tradition pioneered by FOSATU – created space for them to operate as activists without having to fit within the mould of secular political modernity. This history provides clues about the tenets of political consciousness among migrant workers, helps explain ongoing conflict between Inkatha and the African National Congress, and forces us to rethink some of the assumptions about workers' politics in the dominant labour historiography. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Teenage pregnancy has been associated with poor health and poverty for the teen mother and the child, and has serious consequences for society. The purpose of this study was to explore the knowledge of outcomes of pregnancies and labour among rural pregnant teenagers in Limpopo, South Africa. This cross-sectional study involved 966 randomly selected pregnant teenagers and teen mothers still within 6 weeks of their postnatal period in two hospitals. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data on demography, prenatal care, complications of pregnancy and delivery, mode of delivery and outcome of pregnancy. The findings of the study revealed that 40.0% teens mothers reported low birth weight and premature babies; and by caesarean 27.2%. The risk of cephalopelvic disproportion was the commonest indication for caesarean section amongst all primigravidae. The perinatal mortality rate among the teenagers (58.2/1 000) was slightly high. The findings of this study revealed that majority of teen mothers did not book for antenatal care during the first trimester, which is an ideal period for a pregnant mother as advised by Regulation R2488 of 1990. This is worrisome as late antenatal clinic attendance provides little or no time for appropriate screening and management of risk factors. Support should be provided for teenagers who, by accident or choice, have become pregnant, so that they can have the optimal care and outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The labour market in South Africa (SA) has been characterized by very high and increasing rates of unemployment and an acute shortage of skilled workers. Consequently, finding competent people who will fit in with an organisation's culture, vision and strategic goals has been challenging. As a result, the recruitment drives of many organisations currently focus heavily on attracting skills as well as experience. One of the ways in which the skills shortage and lack of experience could be addressed would be by including an internship in the curricula of different programmes offered at Higher Education Institutions. The current study seeks to articulate from a student's perspective the value of internship in the professional preparation of sport management personnel and attempts to contribute to research in education by providing empirical evidence on the usefulness of internships and make recommendations thereon. A 47-item questionnaire was administered to 300 interns at three universities which offered sport management programmes with internship as a compulsory component. Analyses were performed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS - version 17). Principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted on the data. A final model consisting of seven factors which accounted for 77.80% of the overall variance in the scale item scores was produced. The factors were professional development (five items), personal development (five items), marketability (thee items), adaptability (thee items), relevance (thee items), opportunity for growth (two items) and networking (two items). The study found internships to be a valuable component in the sport management curriculum. Emanating from the findings several recommendations were made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that African working class households are the sites of a crisis of social reproduction in contemporary South Africa. Through a gendered analysis of five townships in Emnambithi the article demonstrates that African working class women are the shock absorbers of this crisis. While feminist scholars point to a growing crisis of social reproduction as a global phenomenon, the South African material illustrates how poor women experience this in the South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a university and disciplinary environment where knowledge is increasingly commodified, this paper sketches a reconstruction of the mature Marx's analysis of capitalism. I argue that his understanding remains methodologically powerful and helps to ground sociological analyses of the present. While accepting that there are good grounds for questioning the relevance of Marx in the wake of the South African political transition and the Post-Fordist transformation of labour, this interpretation departs significantly from how Marx has generally been interpreted by sociologists and other social scientists in the country by foregrounding the commodity as the starting point of his social critique. Indeed, I argue that 'class' and 'workplaces', long a focus of radical sociologists, are on their own inadequate to grasp Marx's concept of capitalism. Finally, drawing on the Frankfurt School, I suggest the importance of a critique of labour and the recognition of contradiction as the starting point of an emancipatory project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1954 Hendrik Verwoerd, one of the main architects of the apartheid system, said that blacks ought not to be trained above certain “forms of labour”. These words, often quoted out of context, are commonly interpreted as based on a view of black inferiority and as designed to keep blacks in a position of servitude. This note argues that other considerations should also be taken into account, including the need for providing appropriate labour on a mass basis in an industrialising society and for establishing control over urbanised black youths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the political and social transformation set in motion by the collapse of apartheid and the advent of democracy in 1994, South Africa's migration policy remained mired in the past. The Aliens Control Act of 1991 continued to govern the country's policy until the passage of the Immigration Act of 2002. After amendment in 2004, the Act finally came into force in July 2005. This paper focuses on the implications for South Africa and the SADC region of persisting with a policy framework devised in the apartheid period. First, the mine migrant labour system has remained intact despite a prolonged economic crisis in the mining industry. Second, the national introspection of the first democratic government led to a major decline in legal migration and immigration to South Africa. Third, apartheid-era tactics of migration enforcement intensified through a process of ‘violent othering’. Fourth, the old framework was sexist as well as racist, and while the new policy is gender neutral in language, it is not gender equal in effect. Finally, for a decade, South Africa successfully resisted SADC attempts to develop a regionally harmonised approach to cross-border migration. Recent changes in South African Government policy, particularly the new JIPSA initiative, suggest that the ‘lost decade’ may finally be over. However, without major policy transformation, the unseemly history of post-apartheid migration policy will continue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earnings functions form the basis of numerous labour market analyses. Non-response (particularly among higher earners) may, however, lead to the exclusion of a significant proportion of South Africa's earnings base. Earnings brackets built into surveys intend to maintain response rates. Econometric tools to incorporate brackets vary from “simplistic” imputation to interval regressions. Coefficient differences are investigated here to establish reliable remedies. Monte-Carlo simulations suggest that “simple” methods fail only under extreme skewness and when a substantial number of right-censored observations appear in the sample. Testing procedures applied to LFS data reveal that in practice coefficients are virtually invariant to the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To examine the hypothesis that circular labour migrants who become seriously ill while living away from home return to their rural homes to convalesce and possibly to die. Methods: Drawing on longitudinal data collected by the Agincourt health and demographic surveillance system in rural northeastern South Africa between 1995 and 2004, discrete time event history analysis is used to estimate the likelihood of dying for residents, short-term returning migrants, and long-term returning migrants controlling for sex, age, and historical period. Results: The annual odds of dying for short-term returning migrants are generally 1.1 to 1.9 times (depending on period, sex, and age) higher than those of residents and long-term returning migrants, and these differences are generally highly statistically significant. Further supporting the hypothesis is the fact that the proportion of HIV/TB deaths among short-term returning migrants increases dramatically as time progresses, and short-term returning migrants account for an increasing proportion of all HIV/TB deaths. Conclusions: This evidence strongly suggests that increasing numbers of circular labour migrants of prime working age are becoming ill in the urban areas where they work and coming home to be cared for and eventually to die in the rural areas where their families live. This shifts the burden of caring for them in their terminal illness to their families and the rural healthcare system with significant consequences for the distribution and allocation of health care resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research on the workplace attitudes, expectations and perceptions of white-collar workers has flourished over the past decades, there has been considerably less progress on establishing the concomitant contemporary perceptions of blue-collar workers. Within the South African context, this is a substantial gap in understanding. This article therefore reports the results of an exploratory qualitative study of the workplace perceptions, expectations and attitudes of some 300 South African blue-collar workers in the Gauteng region, using a critical incidents technique. Pay issues, humanity and support were found to be the foremost themes in workers' stories with regard to organisational obligations. Common themes regarding employee obligations included adequate work performance, care and protection of the employer's property, maintaining good work relationships and keeping to designated work hours. Compensation-specific issues focused on pay rises and bonuses, while equity and benefits issues were unexpectedly absent. Also absent were stories regarding development, family and HIV/AIDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unemployment remains one of South Africa's most pressing problems while at the same time there is a great need for physical infrastructure in both urban and rural areas. Concurrently there is also a lack of individual skills and institutional capacity. From a theoretical perspective, substantiated by large scale experience elsewhere in Africa (and research and development in South Africa) there are reasons for advocating the establishment of carefully formulated, long term programmes using employment-intensive methods for the construction and maintenance of the required infrastructure. These programmes have also improved institutional capacities and developed individual skills. Proper employment-intensive construction results in a significant increase in employment generated per unit of expenditure. It can be financially competitive with conventional (equipment-based) construction and can produce the same quality of product within the same time. From a development perspective there are additional socio-economic benefits to be gained such as the development of individual skills and institutional capacities and a contribution to the alleviation of poverty. The concepts and principles, taken together with the processes and results of successful long term, large scale programmes provide criteria by which to evaluate other projects and programmes. In 1994 the South African National Public Works Programme (NPWP) was launched based on the principles outlined above. This paper briefly describes the NPWP and evaluates progress in satisfying its objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares the use of flexible work practices in wholly owned South African (SA) companies with that in foreign-owned companies. Data were obtained from questionnaire results of a study conducted by Horwitz and Franklin (1996) of flexible work practices in SA organizations. The questionnaire was used as part of a collaborative research project involving three countries (Brosnan et al., 1996). It was found that SA-owned companies use certain flexible work practices to a lesser extent than foreign-owned companies. This was found to be the case particularly in the use of numerical forms of flexibility, such as sub-contractors/consultants and the use of temporary employees. Use of subcontractors/consultants and temporary staff agencies was found to be the greatest in partially foreign-owned companies. A larger proportion of foreign-owned companies have lower labour costs than do SA-owned companies. This has, however, not been as a result of the greater use of flexible work practices. Foreign-owned companies make more joint decisions with unions than do SA-owned companies when changing work practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]