Enduring solidarities: accounting for the continuity of support for the alliance amongst Cosatu members

Abstract

This article is based on a longitudinal study of two nation-wide surveys in 1994 and 1998 amongst members of the biggest trade union federations in South Africa: Cosatu. It is an attempt to account for similarity and continuity in opinion and attitudes Cosatu members hold on the following issues: Parliamentary democracy, the alliance between the political party in government, the ANC, the SACP and Cosatu, and expectations of electoral promises. The central argument is that any attempt to examine the enduring alliances between trade unions and former liberation movements have to be founded on a theorization of the nature of solidarity within and between these social movements during and beyond the oppositional phase of their struggles. Thus, in accounting for the similarities between the 1994 and 1998 findings of our research, we have placed solidarity at the center of our interpretation and explanation. It is argued that the consistency in responses is best captured by the notion of ‘enduring solidarities...