Economic Crisis and the Worker Cooperative Alternative in South Africa

The impact of the global economic crisis is being felt through job losses and increasing poverty in South Africa. South Africa is formally in recession with growth forecasts revised downwards, about 208 000 jobs being lost since October last year and about 4 million people declated officially unemployed. Jobs are being lost in various sectors and unions are struggling to respond to this crisis. Within the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa there are serious discussions under way to consider a role for the cooperative option in union strategy. The Executive Director of COPAC spoke to a jobs summit of NUMSA about the Argentinian experience of recovered factories and screened the movie 'The Take'. The union could break new ground in bringing back a transformative politics in the context of the economic crisis. it could revive traditions of worker control and give momentum to the building of a solidarity economy in South Africa.