The membership base of South Africa’s trade union movement has undergone significant changes which begs the question: has it moved away from its working class roots to become a middle class movement.
When sociologists, driven by their value commitments, go beyond the relative comfort of the classroom and engage with organisations outside the university, they dirty their hands.
On 5 March 1984 workers downed tools at Cortonwood Colliery in South Yorkshire, in protest at the Conservative government’s plans to close pits across the country. A week later, National Union of Mineworkers…