Productivity Pacts, the 2000 Volkswagen Strike, and the Trajectory of COSATU in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Focusing mainly on the 2000 strike at Volkswagen in Uitenhage, Eastern Cape, Ashwin Desai argues that the signing of productivity pacts by the National Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA) involved the signing away of many of the shopfloor gains made during the struggles of the 1980s. It also meant that management was able to call upon the union to discipline workers who challenged the pacts. This in turn saw workers come out in a strike that in reality was a strike against their own union. The strike and the changing nature of labor relations in the auto industry prompt some conclusions about the role of the biggest labor federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), in the contested transition in South Africa.