Metal that Will not Bend - The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, 1980-1995 (Paperback)

This volume traces the themes of power, independence, and workers' control as they were practiced by Numsa. A number of small metal organizations, with at times antagonistic organizational and political strategies, were built in different ways and with different attitudes to the exiled liberation movements of the early 1980s. They eventually unified into one powerful organization. Forrest describes how workers' struggles built this power, and she scrutinizes the strategies used in the late 1980s, such as innovative bargaining strategies, to significantly improve the conditions of South Africa's impoverished workers. The volume then progresses to examine how Numsa used its power in an attempt to insert a workers' perspective into the political transition of the early 1990s. It explores the obstacles the union faced, such as the violence that erupted across the country, and its commonality and divergence from the politics of the liberation movements (chiefly the ANC).