Challenges facing Labour Movement in S.A & the World 25- 07 - 06

MEDIA RELEASE FROM WITS UNIVERSITY

ATTENTION: NEWS EDITORS AND LABOUR REPORTERS

DATE: TUESDAY, 25 JULY 2006

CHALLENGES FACING LABOUR MOVEMENTS IN SA AND THE WORLD

" Labour movements have played a central role in freedom in struggles in South Africa and elsewhere. But they face huge challenges in the 21st century world of globalisation and neoliberalism,” says Prof. Lucien van der Walt from Wits University in the lead up to an international conference entitled: “Rethinking worlds of labour: South African labour history in international context”.

The conference runs from 28 to 31 July 2006 at Wits University, hosted by the History Workshop, in conjunction with the Sociology of Work Unit. The conference aims to promote a transnational and regional view of labour history, with reference to southern Africa, and to comparisons of the less developed and semi-peripheral regions of the global ‘South’; to reflect on the implications of the ‘first’ globalisation of the 1870s to the 1930s for the "second" globalisation that started in the 1970s and to foster collaborative work between scholars, particularly those based in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

But why a labour history conference? Nicole Ulrich, a Wits academic explains: “Many issues facing labour today are not new. An earlier period of globalisation from the 1880s to the 1920s has many lessons for today. It's time labour researchers in Africa, Asia and Latin America worked together more closely and learnt from the experiences of each region."

Some of the topics to be presentations are entitled: Coolies, Class, and Nation: Southern perspectives on a global history of labour; Urban Activists and Rural Struggles: communists in Algeria and South Africa; The Southern African Mineral Revolution and Transnational Labour Migration; International Aspects of South African labour; Comparing Communist Parties in India and South Africa; Trade Unionism in the Indian Coal Mining Industry; Globalisation, Cross Border Migration and Inter-ethnic Identity: South Africa and Nigeria and Comparative Aspects of Farm Labour in Botswana and South Africa.

The conference kicks off with a public debate entitled: “Is Labour History? Working Class Movements into the Twenty-First Century” on Friday, 28 July at 7 pm in the John Moffat Building, East Campus, Wits University. It concludes with a “Labour History Tour” on Sunday afternoon.

Van der Walt says: "We wanted to stimulate interest in labour history. It was a huge field in the 1980s, when history was at the centre of political debates. The wheel has turned again. The history of working class and poor people is more important than ever."

For more information on the public lecture, the conference and the tour, call Prof. Lucien van der Walt on (011) 717-4290 or email history-workshop@social.wits.ac.za <mailto:history-workshop@social.wits.ac.za>. Details of the sessions, the programme and the lecture are available at www.wits.ac.za/historyworkshop <http://www.wits.ac.za/historyworkshop>

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