Mondli Hlatshwayo: The so-called Government of National Unity of South Africa and the implications for the working-class and its organizations

Lunch talk at the Centre for African Studies

While the Black majority fought for and won political freedom, along with the right to vote, the social and economic rights of the working class have yet to be realized. Thirty years after the end of formal Apartheid, South Africa remains the most unequal society in the world. Unemployment, poverty, and inequality are chronic and structural issues and that is why the working-class rejected the African National Congress last year. South Africa's general elections held in May 2024 resulted in a significant defeat for the African National Congress (ANC), the political party of the late Nelson Mandela, who was a symbol of resistance in South Africa and other parts of the world.

The recent establishment of a so-called Government of National Unity (GNU), which is essentially a grand coalition between the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance (DA)—both of which are firmly committed to neoliberalism—marks a new phase in which the parties of the ruling class co-govern to aggressively promote a neoliberal agenda.

The ongoing Stilfontein massacre highlights the ANC's anti-working-class stance. The massacre in Stilfontein is reminiscent of the Marikana massacre in 2012, during which 34 miners were killed by the ANC government.

Those fighting for social and economic justice must address the following questions: What is the current state of the working class under these new conditions, and how should its organizations respond to the latest phase of the neoliberal onslaught? Additionally, what role should international solidarity play in strengthening existing working-class struggles in South Africa?

Mondli Hlatshwayo is associate professor at the University of Johannesburg in the field of Worker Education and Labour Studies. His research concentrates on the trade union responses to technological innovations and the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, platform work, immigrant and migrant workers, public transport, higher education, worker education, precarious forms of work, social movements, and non-governmental organizations. Hlatshwayo authored more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. He is co-editor (with Aziz Choudry) of the Pluto Press book, Just Work? Migrant Workers, Globalization, and Resistance (2016).

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