From Grassroots Democracy to National Mobilization: COSATU as a Model of Social Movement Unionism

To understand the development of labor movements like the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which emerged in South Africa in the 1980s as part of the anti-Apartheid movement struggling for national liberation, we need to go beyond conventional categories of economic and political unionism. 'Social movement unionism' combines conventional institutionalized collective bargaining with modes of collective action typically associated with social movements. Based on the experience of COSATU this article develops a four-stage model, using a political process approach, to explain the origins, emergence and development of social movement unionism under a reformist authoritarian regime. The analysis concludes by considering whether social movement unionism can survive the transition to democracy.