Hostname: page-component-68c7f8b79f-m9hx9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-01-17T02:33:20.363Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Danelle Van Zyl-Hermann. Privileged Precariat. White Workers and South Africa’s Long Transition to Majority Rule. [The International African Library, Vol. 63.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2021. xvi, 338 pp. Ill. £125.00. (Paper: £29.99; E-book: $39.99.)

Review products

Danelle Van Zyl-Hermann. Privileged Precariat. White Workers and South Africa’s Long Transition to Majority Rule. [The International African Library, Vol. 63.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.] 2021. xvi, 338 pp. Ill. £125.00. (Paper: £29.99; E-book: $39.99.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2025

Lucien van der Walt
Lucien van der Walt*
Affiliation:
Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU), Sociology, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa
*
E-mail: l.vanderwalt@ru.ac.za
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'

Information

Type
Book Review
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , April 2025 , pp. 163 - 169
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 The Nigeria Labour Congress, based in Africa’s most populous country, was then (and remains) numerically larger, at over four million. However, it is weaker than COSATU, and proportionately smaller: Nigeria, with 230 million people, is over four times the size of South Africa.

2 Ian Macun, “Growth, Structure and Power in the South African Union Movement”, in Glenn Adler and Eddie Webster (eds), Trade Unions and Democratization in South Africa, 1985–1997 (Basingstoke and New York, 2000), pp. 60 Table 3.1, 65 Table 3.3.

3 Government records put union membership at 3,261,900 in 2013: Lucien van der Walt, “Rebuilding the Workers’ Movement”, Amandla, 63 (2019), pp. 24–25; also see idem, “Fragmented Labour Movement, Fragmented Labour Studies: New Directions for Research and Theory”, in Malehoko Tshoaedi, Christine Bischoff, and Andries Bezuidenhout (eds), Labour Disrupted: Reflections on the Future of Work in South Africa (Johannesburg, 2023), pp. 23–25, 29.

4 “Union membership increased from 3.5 million to over 4 million between 2013/14 and 2020/21, while the total number of registered unions increased from 203 to 220”: “Minister Thulas Nxesi addresses SATUCC Worker Congress in Gauteng”, 28 October 2022, press statement, Department of Labour, Republic of South Africa.

5 M.A. Du Toit, South African Trade Unions: History, Legislation, Policy (Johannesburg, 1976), p. 72.

6 Nicole Ulrich, “A History of FEDUSA”, Research report for the Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA) (2022). Unpublished.

7 Republished in English, and expanded, as Wessel Visser, A History of the South African Mine Workers’ Union, 1902–2014 (Lewiston, NY, 2016).

8 See Jantjie Xaba, “Social Capital Unionism and Empowerment: A Case of Solidarity Union at ArcelorMittal Vanderbijlpark”, in Tshoaedi et al., Labour Disrupted, pp. 205–228.

9 In Jason Hickel, Democracy as Death: The Moral Order of Anti-Liberal Politics in South Africa (Oakland, CA, 2015).