How labour broking almost broke the post office
By Sarah Evans —
A new critique of casualisation at the parastatal – and its demise – could have wider lessons for reducing economic inequality in South Africa.
A new working paper on the end of labour broking at the post office is a cogent critique of the labour broking system and its role in the downward spiral of industrial relations at the state-owned utility.
The paper is written by David Dickinson, a sociology professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and a research associate at the university’s Society, Work and Development Institute. The paper, titled Fighting their own battles: The Mabarete and the end of labour broking in the South African Post Office, was launched on Friday.
It is a timely intervention in a public discourse largely concerned with whether or not an aunt’s birthday card arrived months late and seeks to redirect the conversation to the casualisation of labour, its impact on the lives of postal deliverymen and women, and the way the labour broking system has defined economic injustice.
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