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https://doi.org/10.1177/0020715218810769

International Journal of Comparative Sociology

2020, Vol. 61(2-3) 159 –177 © The Author(s) 2018

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IJ CS The community strike: From precarity to militant organizing

Marcel Paret The University of Utah, USA; University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Abstract How do insecure layers of the working class resist when they lack access to power and organization at the workplace? The community strike represents one possible approach. Whereas traditional workplace strikes target employers and exercise power by withholding labor, community strikes focus on the sphere of reproduction, target the state, and build power through moral appeals and disruptions of public space. Drawing on ethnography and interviews in the impoverished Black townships and informal settlements around Johannesburg, I illustrate this approach by examining widespread local protests in South Africa. Insecurely employed and unemployed residents implemented community strikes by demanding public services, barricading roads and destroying property, and boycotting activities such as work and school. Within these local revolts, community represented both a site of struggle and a collective actor. While community strikes enabled economically insecure groups to mobilize and make demands, they also confronted significant limits, including tensions between protesters and workers.

Keywords General strike, precarity, protest, strikebreaking, violence

How do insecure layers of the working class resist when they lack access to power and organiza- tion at the workplace? In recent decades, growing economic insecurity across the globe brought this question to the forefront. The rise of ‘flexible’ and insecure employment went hand in hand with the weakening of unions and labor protections (Mosoetsa et al., 2016; Standing, 2011). Temporary, part-time, outsourced, internship, and independent contract jobs, among other forms of informal and insecure work, proved difficult to organize around, if not necessarily impossible. At the same time, in some regions, low demand for labor underpinned the expansion of ‘surplus’ populations, who were superfluous to the requirements of capital accumulation and had very little attachment to any workplace (Li, 2010). Surplus populations were especially prominent within the urban ‘slums’ of the Global South, where unemployment and informal survivalist activity predominated (Davis, 2004).

Some groups managed to overcome these challenges by mobilizing outside the workplace (Agarwala, 2013; Paret, 2018; Rossi, 2017). Local protests in South Africa, which began to emerge in the middle of the 2000s and accelerated after 2008, represented a prominent example (Alexander,

Corresponding author: Marcel Paret, The University of Utah, 380 S 1530 E RM 301, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-9057, USA. Email: [email protected]

810769COS0010.1177/0020715218810769International Journal of Comparative SociologyParet research-article2018

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2010; Paret and Runciman, 2016). Between 2009 and 2017, the number of local protests in the coun- try each year hovered close to an average of one protest per day (Alexander et al., 2018: 35). Emanating primarily from Black residential areas ravaged by poverty and unemployment, local pro- tests frequently targeted the state and demanded public resources such as housing and electricity (Alexander, 2010; Paret et al., 2017). Unemployed youth played a prominent role within the protests (Alexander and Pfaffe, 2014; Dawson, 2014b; Rampedi, 2017), while unions remained distant from them (Paret, 2015a, 2017) They often deployed disruptive or ‘violent’ tactics (Alexander et al., 2018; Paret, 2015b; Von Holdt, 2014). Finally, local protests often reflected either engagements with or factionalism within the ruling party (Booysen, 2012; Dawson, 2014a; Von Holdt, 2014).

In this article, I use the example of South Africa’s local protests to illuminate one approach to organizing – the community strike – that is especially relevant to those who have only limited access to workplace power or workplace organizing. The term derives from residents’ somewhat peculiar usage of the term ‘strike’ to describe local protests. A well-known tactic of working-class resistance, strikes typically entail workers disrupting production by withholding their labor power. In the South African case, however, the term felt out of place. Local protests centered on conditions within resi- dential areas, rather than work-related issues, and unemployed residents were more prominent pro- tagonists than were workers. An important historical legacy underpinned popular references to strikes: under apartheid, workers sometimes supported community mobilization by refusing to go to work. In the post-apartheid period, residents retained ‘strike’ in their everyday vocabulary, even though workplace organization grew increasingly detached from community mobilization. I use this seemingly paradoxical situation to develop the idea of the community strike.

Previous scholarship identifies varied ways in which precarious conditions of work and liveli- hood are giving rise to specific forms of resistance. With the concept of the community strike, I aim to synthesize and link these insights. Whereas traditional workplace strikes target employers and exercise power by withholding labor, community strikes focus on the sphere of reproduction, target the state, and build power through moral appeals and disruptions of public space. To illustrate this approach, I draw on ethnographic fieldwork in the impoverished Black townships and informal set- tlements around Johannesburg, as well as interviews with activists and residents. I argue that, in the absence of workplace organization, the unemployed and insecurely employed mobilized through three strategies or tactics, each of which was consistent with the community strike approach: demands on the state for public service delivery; disruptive activities, such as barricading roads or destroying property; and stay-aways, in which residents boycotted activities such as work and school. Notions of community, as both a site of struggle and a collective actor, permeated all three.

Bringing the traditional strike tactic out of the workplace, community strikes in South Africa ena- bled residents without access to workplace organization to engage in collective struggles. In this sense, they offered a useful window into how working classes are managing to mobilize in the contemporary era of informality and precarity. Yet, the study also reveals important limitations. One of the most cru- cial limits was the emergent tension between protesters and workers, which resembled the classic tension within workplace strikes between strikers and strike-breakers. The tension was inherent to community strikes, rooted in the contradiction between their emphasis on community unity and their lack of workplace organization. In this sense, community strikes underscored some of the challenges that economically insecure groups confront in their efforts to mobilize and build power.

Precarious resistance and community

Some scholars are pessimistic about the capacity of working classes to forge collective struggles and build power in the face of heightened capital mobility, insecure work, and unemployment. Standing (2011: 14, 22, 25), for example, laments that the ‘precariat’ of insecure workers ‘lack

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self-esteem and social worth in their work’, do not have an ‘occupational identity’, do not ‘feel part of a solidaristic labor community’, and suffer from ‘anxiety, alienation, anomie and anger’, which in turn undermine progressive action. Likewise, Davis (2004) argues that the urban poor have ‘lit- tle access to the culture of collective labor or large-scale class struggle’ due to their being ‘largely dispossessed of fungible labor-power’ (p. 28). Contra these conclusions, however, insecure work- ers and the unemployed continue to engage in protest and other forms of collective action. Some even manage to secure material gains. In describing this ‘precarious resistance’, scholars under- score three related strategies that economically insecure groups use to forge collective struggles and build power, despite their limited access to workplace power and organizing.

First, whereas the workplace strike centers on the workplace, precarious resistance centers on the domain where individuals and families secure basic livelihood or what some refer to as the sphere of reproduction. For Scully (2016), this stems from the realities of contemporary economic insecurity and the coping strategies that they call forth. Because insecure workers and the unem- ployed do not have jobs that provide for the immediate needs of themselves and their families, they rely heavily on non-wage sources such as government assistance, rent, and the wages of other household members. This produces a new form of labor politics: ‘While the traditional politics of labor arises from the workplace – the key site of production – the politics of precarity arises from the home – the key site of reproduction’ (p. 308). Residential areas, rather than the shop floor, become the central site of struggle.

Second, and related, precarious resistance often targets the state, rather than employers. In an era of heightened capital mobility and economic restructuring, employers may undermine resistance through geographic relocation (or the threat of it) or insecure labor arrangements. In contrast, as Agarwala (2013) argues, the state is the ‘one actor that cannot escape’ (p. 30). While insecure workers and the unemployed may not have a stable employer, their presence within the territory of a given nation-state enables them to direct claims to its associated government agencies. Agarwala shows, for example, how informal workers in India, who did not have a clear employer, directed their demands instead toward the state. They used ‘their power as voters to demand state responsibility for their social consumption or reproductive needs (such as education, housing, and health care’ (p. 15). Her analysis suggests that formal citizenship, and especially the capacity to vote, strengthens claims on the state, though noncitizens may also turn to the state for social protection.

Third, precarious resistance typically requires alternative sources of power. In a traditional work- place strike, workers rely on structural power, which derives from their capacity to disrupt production by withholding their labor power. This is precisely the kind of power that unemployed and insecurely groups lack. One way to compensate for a lack of structural power is to build ‘symbolic leverage’ (Chun, 2009) by putting even greater stress than usual on moral claims, demands for public recogni- tion, and appeals to social justice. To illustrate this approach, Chun (2009) shows how low-wage workers in the United States and South Korea organized around attempts to ‘rebuild the dignity and social worth of subordinated social actors who have been disenfranchised, devalued, and deemed inferior’ (p. 18). These efforts connected class-based experiences of exploitation to non-class identi- ties around gender and immigration. They also drew upon national social movement legacies, such as the civil rights and New Left movements in the United States and the women workers’ and democra- tization movements in South Korea. At a tactical level, these symbolic struggles often manifested in ‘public dramas’, which entailed ‘visible and dramatic struggles waged in the public arena’ with the intent of securing a sense of recognition, dignity, and justice (p. 17).

Economically insecure groups may also aim to bolster their struggles by moving beyond moral appeals. As Webster et al. (2008) suggest, workers may supplement symbolic power with logistical power, which refers to their capacity to disrupt public space and flows of goods and capital. For work- ers occupying key positions within global supply chains, structural power and logistical power may

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reinforce each other and even become indistinguishable (Alimahomed-Wilson and Ness, 2018). Yet, social movements may disrupt commodity chains as well, either without organized workers or in col- laboration with them (Sowers et al., 2017). In these instances, like symbolic power, logistical power operates primarily outside the workplace: ‘logistical power takes matters out of the workplace and onto the landscape where workplaces are located. It blocks roads and lines of communication, and crashes internet servers’ (Webster et al., 2008: 13). The capacity to disrupt everyday processes within the public domain, such as by stopping traffic, can be a powerful tool for registering demands. To the extent, however, that such disruptions frustrate or anger sections of the broader public, they run the risk of undermining their moral legitimacy and, in turn, symbolic leverage.

The community strike reflects these three shifts: from production to reproduction as the site of struggle, from employers to the state as the target of struggle, and from structural power to symbolic and logistical power (Table 1). The idea of ‘community’ is central. Community is a versatile and malleable social construct that varied actors may deploy to advance a wide array of political projects (Collins, 2010). It may refer to broader categories of peoplehood – religious, ethnic, racial, or otherwise – or to neighborhood and place. Such identities provide a crucial foundation for collective resistance: ‘when individuals cease seeing themselves as part of a mass, a mob, a collectivity, a population, or a public, and instead claim a sense of belonging to a community, they are primed for political analysis and action’ (Collins, 2010: 12). Notions of community are especially useful for insecure workers and the unemployed because they extend beyond the workplace and into the sphere of reproduction. Community also invokes strong social ties, pride, and a sense of history. Activists may use these associations to build symbolic power by infusing their claims with emotions, values, and moral weight. Community may also bolster claims on the state. As Chatterjee (2004) shows for the urban and rural poor in India, resi- dents may use moral notions of community to distinguish themselves as segments of the popula- tion that deserve government attention and resources. In these various ways, notions of community enable collective resistance to precarity.

Precarity and politics in South Africa

Understanding community strikes in South Africa requires attention to the specific historical con- text. Under apartheid, organized workers played a significant role in extra-workplace struggles. Industrialization in the 1960s gave way to a vibrant labor movement in the 1970s and 1980s, which amassed significant power on the shop floor and pioneered what scholars described as ‘social movement unionism’ (Seidman, 1994; Webster, 1988). The latter referred to workers’ militant tac- tics, their alliances with non-union groups, and especially their engagement in broader struggles for both democratization and improved living conditions within working-class communities. South Africa was prototypical, but not unique. In the 1970s and 1980s, similar examples of social move- ment unionism emerged in countries such as Brazil, South Korea, and Philippines. Just as in South Africa, unions in these places looked beyond the narrow interests of their members to forge broader struggles against the brutalities of capitalism and authoritarian rule (Seidman, 2011).

Table 1. Workplace strike versus community strike.

Element of struggle Workplace strike Community strike

Site Production Reproduction Target Employer State Power Structural Symbolic and logistical

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One of the most impressive aspects of social movement unionism, as it manifested under authoritarian industrial capitalism within the global South, was that it combined elements of the workplace strike and the community strike, as distinguished above. Consistent with the idea of a community strike, workers engaged in struggles around living conditions within working-class residential areas, amplified moral claims for democratic inclusion, and targeted the state. Yet, workers also continued to wage struggles on the shop floor, make demands on employers, and build power by withholding their labor power. Workplace power proved a valuable weapon within broader struggles (Seidman, 1994, 2011). It was precisely this combination that made social move- ment unionism so powerful: ‘Articulating claims for inclusion, “social movement unionism” linked workers’ demands for rights at work to communities’ demands for expanded services and rights’ (Seidman, 2011: 96). Noting the vibrancy of labor movements in the Global South, some observers began to advocate for social movement unionism as one way to revitalize the bureaucra- tized and shrinking labor movements of the Global North (Seidman 2011: 98–100).

At same time, however, political and economic shifts within South Africa undermined the con- ditions that previously underpinned social movement unionism (Von Holdt, 2002). Democratization brought greater formal protections for workers and institutionalized channels for collective bar- gaining. The dominant labor federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), also entered into a formal partnership with the new ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC). Many union leaders subsequently left the labor movement for positions in government or business, and aspirations for upward mobility began to overshadow long-held commitments to col- lective struggle and working-class solidarity (Buhlungu, 2010). At the same time, unions con- fronted a slack labor market as unemployment hovered around 35 percent of the workforce. Employers also sought to cut costs and undermine union power by implementing insecure employ- ment relations, such as temporary, part-time, and subcontracted jobs (Kenny and Webster, 1998; Webster, 2005). COSATU confronted difficulty in organizing the most vulnerable segments of the employed workforce, such as temporary and subcontracted workers (Paret, 2015a). As a result, union members increasingly represented a privileged segment of workers in stable, full-time jobs, often within the public sector (Buhlungu, 2010).

Table 2 summarizes some of the main features of the South African labor market during the 2008–2016 period when local protests proliferated. The ‘informal’ sector includes employees in small businesses that did not deduct income tax, as well as employers, own-account workers, and unpaid household workers that did not register for tax purposes. Roughly one-fifth of the eligible workforce was employed in either the ‘informal’ sector, or the agricultural and domestic work sec- tors, where employment relations tend to be highly insecure. About one-third of the workforce was unemployed. As of 2016, then, formal sector employment accounted for less than half of the labor force (46%). These figures underscored a considerable amount of economic insecurity.

A deeper look at employment conditions reveals further evidence of precarity. In terms of job tenure, as of 2016 only three-fifths of employees held permanent jobs. The other 40 percent worked in jobs with either limited duration (14%) or unspecified duration (25%). Many employees did not benefit from an employer contribution to a pension/retirement fund (52%) or the Unemployment Insurance Fund (34%), and more than one-third did not have paid sick leave (34%). Underscoring the extent of informality, close to half of employees did not have income tax deducted from their pay- check (46%), and one-fifth did not have a written contract. Nearly three-quarters of employees did not receive any health insurance benefits from their employers (70%). Finally, less than one-third of employees belonged to a trade union (29%). Including the unemployed and those in the informal sec- tor, unions represented only 15–17 percent of the total labor force between 2008 and 2016.

Within this context, unions focused primarily, if not exclusively, on defending the narrow inter- ests of their members. The democratic context, and especially the new channels created for

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collective bargaining, encouraged this narrow focus. To the extent that labor did seek to promote a broader working-class agenda, it emphasized attempts to influence policy decisions rather than grassroots mobilization within residential areas. COSATU’s trademark 1-day protests around broader ‘socioeconomic issues’, which brought together workers from multiple unions to call for legislative changes, had little connection to the proliferating local protests that blazed through the country. Meanwhile, unionized workers represented a decreasing proportion of residents within the impoverished urban areas where local protests were prevalent. These transformations meant that unemployed and insecurely employed residents had to forge struggles with little, if any, access to collective workplace organization. Unable to strategically withhold their labor power or bargain collectively with employers, the urban poor relied instead on waging dramatic protests, organizing in the name of the community, and targeting the state (Alexander and Pfaffe, 2014). The commu- nity strike in South Africa encapsulated these approaches.

I argue that local protests in South Africa included three features that reflected the community strike approach: service delivery, disruption, and stay-aways. If we consider the three elements of a community strike, as elaborated in Table 1, as three points of a triangle, each feature of local protests in South Africa emphasized a different side of the triangle, or two different elements of a community strike (Figure 1). Demands for service delivery identified the state as the key target and reproduction as the key site of struggle. Disruptive tactics also targeted the state while seeking to build symbolic and logistical power. For some residents, disruption defined strikes, distinguishing them from other protests. Finally, residents used stay-away tactics to build symbolic and logistical power through organization at the site of reproduction. Calling on residents to forgo outside activi- ties during protests, stay-aways preserved the idea of a strike despite the absence of workplace

Table 2. Labor market characteristics, South Africa 2008–2016.

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Sector Formal sector 50.7 49.0 46.5 47.6 47.6 48.2 47.6 46.6 46.0 Informal sector 11.4 10.6 11.2 10.8 10.7 10.5 10.6 11.6 11.0 Agriculture/domestic work 10.8 9.7 9.3 8.8 8.9 9.0 8.2 9.3 9.0 Unemployed 27.0 30.7 33.0 32.9 32.8 32.3 33.6 32.6 34.0 Job term lengtha

Permanent nature 63.2 64.5 64.9 64.6 64.2 62.6 62.9 60.4 61.2 Limited duration 11.3 11.3 12.3 12.9 13.7 14.2 15.5 14.4 14.3 Unspecified duration 25.4 24.2 22.8 22.5 22.1 23.1 21.5 25.2 24.5 Informality/insecuritya

No pension 53.8 52.8 53.6 51.4 50.2 52.0 50.1 53.5 52.4 No paid sick leave 41.3 38.5 35.8 32.8 38.3 36.2 34.1 36.6 34.1 No UIF contribution 43.0 41.6 42.4 41.7 36.6 37.6 38.1 39.3 38.2 No medical aid 71.0 69.3 67.5 68.4 66.4 68.0 67.8 69.9 70.4 No income tax deduction 44.4 44.7 47.2 42.8 43.0 43.6 42.4 45.8 45.5 No written contract 24.1 21.9 21.5 20.1 19.3 19.8 18.9 21.0 20.0 Fewer than 40 hours/week 15.5 15.7 15.0 14.7 14.9 15.9 15.2 15.6 16.0 Trade union membershipa 30.8 29.8 30.3 28.9 30.7 27.7 28.7

UIF: Unemployment Insurance Fund. Source: Statistics South Africa (2016). aFigures pertain to employees only, excluding employers, own-account workers, and unpaid workers in household busi- nesses.

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organization. Notions of community were central to all three components. Community represented, simultaneously, the terrain of struggle, the main collective actor, a source of symbolic power, and the site where solidarity both emerged and exploded.

Methodology

This study draws on 31 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2007 and 2017. I focused on Gauteng province – the smallest and most populous province in South Africa and the economic hub of the country – and within Gauteng, on protest-affected townships and informal settlements in and around the Johannesburg metropolitan area. My goal was to understand the political dynamics underpinning the proliferation of local protests. I participated in rallies and protests, observed public mass meetings and smaller organizing meetings, traveled with activists, and had hundreds, if not thousands, of informal conversations with activist and residents. As part of the research, I collected 287 interviews, including 105 in-depth interviews, and 182 shorter interviews gathered mostly at protest events. I focus here on the in-depth interviews, which typi- cally lasted between 30 minutes and 2 hours and focused on individuals’ economic background, political experiences, and world views. The interviewees were not a random sample, as I focused instead on individuals who were involved in local organizing and protest activities.

Service delivery: public provision and reproduction

The notion of ‘service delivery’ permeated everyday discourse in the impoverished townships and informal settlements. It also lay at the center of popular resistance. Journalists, academics, and laypersons alike commonly referred to local protests as ‘service delivery’ protests (Alexander, 2010). Residents conceptualized services quite loosely. While demands for housing, water, and electricity were especially prevalent, protesters also sought tar roads, street lights, toilets, refuse removal, jobs, and access to education, among others. Such demands identified residential areas – the places where people lived, ate, studied, slept, and shared resources, – as the key sites of strug- gle, rather than workplaces or points of production.

Whereas ‘service’ denoted the object of desire, ‘delivery’ referenced the state’s obligation to provide it. Across residential areas, residents frequently targeted the state, and especially the local state, as the main provider of social protection against economic insecurity. Local protests thus emphasized what Castells (1983) refers to as demands for ‘collective consumption’, which revolve around ‘goods and services directly and indirectly provided by the state’ (p. xviii). Many residents

Figure 1. Features of the community strike in South Africa.

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viewed public provision as mandatory, rather than optional. As one activist from Bekkersdal remarked, residents asked the local municipality

to explain reasons … why there is no service rendered to the people … We cannot beg as the community to have those services delivered. That is what we are expecting, and it’s not a favor, but an obligation, which the municipality has to fulfill.

He concluded that ‘the blame and everything, it goes back to the government. Then the government will be able to categorize in terms of their failures for service delivery upon this community’ (Interview 65, 17 April 2014, Bekkersdal, male, 31 years old; emphasis added).

It is impossible to understand these views outside of the context of South Africa’s democratic transition. As noted above, the anti-apartheid movement fused together struggles for democracy, wages and improved workplace conditions, and public services in residential areas. Prior to the first democratic elections, and for decades afterward, the liberation-movement-turned-ruling-party, the ANC, consistently promised to provide a ‘better life for all’. The ANC’s first macroeconomic policy, the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), promised a wide range of mate- rial improvements, including better access to housing, water, electricity, toilets, garbage removal, telephones, food, transportation, health care, and social security. The ANC (1994) argued that ‘the new democratic government will remove the division and complication of the old apartheid order. This will make consultation, action and delivery easier and more efficient’ (emphasis added). Local protests called on the government to follow-through on these promises.

This historical legacy provided a basis for symbolic power, as it affirmed the state’s moral obliga- tion to protect the well-being of residents, and especially poor Black residents. Local activists fre- quently used the idea of community to capitalize on this legacy and amplify their moral power. The idea of community served three key and related functions. First, it reinforced the site of reproduction as the central terrain of struggle. Place-based notions of community, which predominated within South Africa’s local protests, denoted collectivities rooted in residential areas rather than workplaces. Second, consistent with Chatterjee (2004), residents used the idea of community to identify an easily recognizable segment of the population that the state was overlooking in its development efforts. Community thus denoted a group of people available for service delivery, as per the process of national liberation and the ANC’s promises. Third, by encompassing all residents within a given geographic area, community signaled a detachment from party politics and narrow struggles for per- sonal enrichment. Activists frequently emphasized that they were protesting on behalf of the entire community, rather than some special interest within or beyond it, such as a political party.

By rooting popular resistance in geographic space, the central discourse of community rein- forced localization. The precise meaning of service delivery varied across residential areas. To illustrate this variation, I briefly describe two very different areas – Motsoaledi and Bekkersdal – each of which experienced significant protests between 2009 and 2015. Motsoaledi was an infor- mal settlement that first emerged in the early 1990s, on the eve of the democratic breakthrough, when residents began squatting on open land. Within two decades, the population mushroomed to 3500 households and 10,000 residents. Residents lived in tin shacks. They did not have access to electricity, and most relied on illegal water taps, which residents extended from the communal taps that the state provided. An explosion of protests in early 2013 revolved around the demand for state-provided formal housing, with the hope that this would also make it possible for the state to provide electricity and water inside residents’ homes.

The situation was very different in Bekkersdal, where protests emanated from a formal township constructed by the colonial and apartheid governments after World War II. While local protests did include residents from the adjacent informal settlement, which resembled conditions within

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Motsoaledi, local organizing efforts concentrated in the formal housing area where residents had run- ning water and electricity. The demands were less clear and more diverse. In 2013, for example, an increased fee for municipal gravesites sparked frustration, but the subsequent protests covered a wide range of issues such as running sewerage in the streets, electricity shortages, irregular garbage collec- tion, employment in the municipality, funding for education, and access to a new housing develop- ment to relieve overcrowding. As one activist put it, ‘one issue will open up another issue’ (Interview 47, 12 March 2014, Bekkersdal, male, 28 years old). What unified residents, despite these varied demands, was a common expectation that the state would provide some improvement or ‘develop- ment’ and in so doing protect them from the ravages of unemployment and poverty.

Varying historical conditions thus gave protests a distinctive local flair. While activists in differ- ent areas shared a common demand for service delivery, and a common target in the state, they typically pursued their struggles separately. To bolster their demands on the state, residents turned to disruption and stay-aways. In different ways, each of these tactics translated the idea of a strike to the community context.

Disruption: attracting the state

Local protests sought to attract the attention of public officials. Residents wanted officials to rec- ognize both their presence and their worthiness of consideration for development projects. In pressing their demands, residents could appeal to the historical legacy of the liberation movement, to the obligation of the ANC and the government to provide resources, and even to parts of the new constitution, such as Section 26, which enshrined the right to adequate housing. Yet, the state con- fronted massive demands, and even in instances where service delivery was impressive, gaps remained. Housing was a crucial example. While the ANC delivered more than three million free homes during the first two decades of democracy, a national backlog of two million homes remained (Levenson, 2017). In most instances, simply asking the state to deliver on the promises of national liberation was not enough to produce results.

Residents were acutely aware of these challenges. They understood that they needed to work hard to attract the attention of the state and its resources. Residents frequently attempted to use the formal channels of the state, such as by requesting meetings with government officials, holding legal marches, and submitting memoranda of demands, which typically gave officials a deadline of 7–14 days to respond. These efforts rarely produced the intended results on their own. To supple- ment these formal approaches, some residents turned to disruption. Common tactics included bar- ricading roads, destroying property, and burning tires, which produced a tunnel of smoke that others could see miles away. Referring to the necessity of these approaches, activists frequently asserted that ‘violence’ was the only ‘language’ that state officials understood. Bringing popular frustrations and moral appeals into the public sphere, these disruptive tactics represented one form of what Chun (2009) refers to as public dramas.

The disruptive component of local protests resembled what Webster et al. (2008) refer to as logistical power. Moving beyond the workplace, activists sought to call attention to their demands by blocking traffic and disrupting business. Disruption also had a symbolic element. Residents used burning tires and property destruction to demonstrate their anger and frustration and to high- light the failures of the post-apartheid state to deliver on its promises. As one resident put it, disrup- tion shows

the office for the mayor that we are tired … That is why we are burning the tires, and put the stone in the middle of the road; just to show that the people are tired. So we need our needs in a force. Actually, we use the force. (Interview 67, 23 April 2014, Tsakane, male, 35 years old)

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Protests at the Motsoaledi informal settlement illustrated these dynamics. Residents anxiously awaited a formal housing development to replace their tin shacks, which public officials promised was on the way. By April 2013, however, just 1-year shy of two decades after the democratic transi- tion, there was little evidence of progress besides some underground pipes. Residents took to the streets to express their frustration and to encourage the state to accelerate the project. Protesters toppled a traffic light and burned a nearby KFC restaurant. Referring to this protest, two activists contrasted a ‘peaceful march’, which followed legal institutionalized channels, with a ‘violent protest’, which eschewed such methods. They argued that only the latter was effective:

Respondent 1: We were having something like nine peaceful marches that we conducted. Nobody is speaking about those ones. They are only speaking about KFC.

Respondent 2: Exactly.

Respondent 1: They think KFC is better than us.

Interviewer: So they do not listen, you say, when you have a regular march?

Respondent 2: They do not care. Nobody will come there. What they can do, they can send a puppet and say go take that memorandum and put it in the dirty bin. But when you go violently–

Respondent 1: They want to see what is happening.

Respondent 2: The people started arriving. Now the statement is being heard by many people. (Interview 32, 22 July 2013, Motsoaledi, two males)

This type of disruption had a historical precedent. When township protests exploded during the middle of the 1980s, popular calls to make the country ‘ungovernable’, and thus to destabilize the apartheid regime, rang loudly. After referring briefly to the idea in its annual January 8 statements in 1984 and 1985, the ANC made this intention explicit in an April 1985 pamphlet: ‘Make Apartheid Unworkable! Make the Country Ungovernable! Forward to People’s Power! Long Live the ANC – the Vanguard of Our Revolution!’ (ANC, 1985). Residents remembered that the achievement of democ- racy did not come easily and vowed to use disruption again if necessary. As another Motsoaledi activist explained, ‘Remember, getting the freedom, it was all about striking and everything. So you know what, we started to make protest and everything’ (Interview 30, 22 July 2013, Motsoaledi, male).

Disruption, and particularly illegal disruption, was central to the way in which residents thought about ‘strikes’ within their residential areas. Mpho, a young Motsoaledi activist, defined a strike by contrasting it with a legal, state-sanctioned march. Whereas a police escort would support a march, he noted, a ‘strike is illegal … A strike is based on, where are we gonna march to and what are we going to destroy?’ For him, such disruption was crucial for conveying the deep frustration that frequently underpinned local protests:

So that they may be able to see what we want, and that we serious, we need these things. A strike is more emotional. It’s like guys, we want these things and we are really tired now. We are demanding. So you have to see that we serious.

While admitting that disruptive tactics might lead to police arrests and even bullets, he concluded that residents were willing to take the risk: ‘They do not care. They gonna fight until the end’ (Interview 38, 16 September 2013, Motsoaledi, male, 20 years old).

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Mpho’s celebration of community strikes contrasted sharply with his analysis of a more conven- tional, union-backed, worker-led strike at the nearby Baragwanath Hospital. Another activist asked Motsoaledi residents to support the hospital workers, but when they did, Mpho was disappointed with the results:

Then we went there … only to find that when the people [workers] come they are walking on the pavement and cars are just passing by. [If] it’s a strike, cars are gonna be stopped … we were walking on the pavement, people [Motsoaledi residents] started asking: are we striking, marching or walking? And I said I do not know. Because they told me it was gonna be a strike. So we went there and we started affiliating ourselves with the workers, we started to go to the streets, and the workers themselves told us that, ‘no, no, no, no violence. No, please, no violence. We don’t want you to go to the streets, burn anyone’s cars, or close the road. Let the cars pass by’ … I was amazed. (Interview, 16 September 2013, Motsoaledi, Respondent 38, male, 20)

Mpho’s story underscored the distinction between a traditional workplace strike, which resi- dents confronted outside the hospital, and community strikes, with which residents were more familiar. Whereas in the former, the primary disruption occurred inside the workplace when work- ers withdrew their labor power; in the latter, the disruption occurred outside the workplace, in public and on the streets.

As Mpho continued his story, he illustrated how the confusion over the meaning of the strike led to a breakdown in solidarity. He explained how they went to the workers ‘with the intention of supporting them and supporting ourselves … the workers being recognized, and we being recog- nized as well. It’s a 50/50’. Yet, the lack of disruption outside the workplace left residents frus- trated. Mpho exclaimed that

It’s not even an illegal march! And if we interact with them, we [are] supporting them, and we [are] not fighting for our own thing. So, it’s useless for us to be here. [So I] took the loudhailer, called everybody home.

Discerning the tactics at play, Mpho concluded that residents were not going to benefit. They required more disruptive tactics to register their grievances. Feeling used, the residents left, and solidarity fizzled.

Stay-away: building power at the point of reproduction

In addition to disruption, residents also used stay-aways to build power beyond the workplace. A stay-away refers to a boycott of activities, such as work, school, transportation, and business. Prominent during the apartheid era, stay-aways have a long history in South Africa (Webster, 1981, 1988: 185–187). Under apartheid, unions played a crucial role in stay-aways, which typically entailed workers staying away from work across multiple workplaces, as well as students staying away from school. Webster (1981) thus noted that ‘a stay-away is similar to a general strike in that it involves a general withdrawal of labor that does not focus on specific plant-based issues’ (p. 11). The November 1984 stay-away in the PWV region represented a pinnacle of union–community collaboration, resulting in 800,000 workers downing tools for two days and 400,000 students boy- cotting school (Forrest, 2011: 343–344). Using the withdrawal of labor power to support broader political struggles, stay-aways combined elements of what I refer to above as workplace strikes and community strikes (Table 1). They were central to South Africa’s social movement unionism in the 1980s (Webster, 1988: 185–187).

170 International Journal of Comparative Sociology 61(2-3)

Stay-aways assumed a very different meaning within the context of the local protests that pro- liferated after 2008. As noted above, in the post-apartheid period, unionized workers represented a decreasing proportion of residents within protest-affected areas. Unions also grew increasingly distant from local struggles within residential areas. It follows that unions were rarely involved in locally organized stay-aways, which typically did not include any workplace organizing. Led by insecure workers and the unemployed, local stay-aways emphasized organizing within residential areas rather than workplaces. The primary goal of the tactic was to get residents to abandon out- side activities – primarily work and school – and instead participate in local protests. Whereas traditional worker strikes draw a picket line around the workplace, with the goal of keeping work- ers out, stay-aways associated with local protests in South Africa drew picket lines around resi- dential areas, with the goal of keeping residents in.

The use of the stay-away tactic stemmed partially from its historical legacy. Decades of strug- gle under apartheid cemented stay-aways as a crucial tactic of popular resistance. Residents con- tinued to use them in the post-apartheid period, despite the declining significance of workplace organizing to local struggles in residential areas. The persistent prevalence of the tactic stemmed also from the importance of symbolic struggles and especially the idea of community. The moral discourse of community amplified the importance of local participation. The greater the participa- tion, the more legitimate were protesters’ claims to speak on behalf of all residents within the given area. As Mpho explained,

If everybody went to work and every student and learner went to school, how many people will be involved in the strike, so it will have impact? So, we looking for impact at a strike. So, that’s why a lot of people are told not to go to work. Just participate. (Interview 38, 16 September 2013, Motsoaledi, male, 20 years old)

Kaya, an activist who helped to lead local protests in the East Rand township of Tsakane, ech- oed the importance of mass participation. When asked why activists told people not to go to work, she explained,

It’s because we have been marching, and [if some] people go to work, and others to the protest, there will be no good outcome. We said, this is our last march, and we want progress … Everyone needs that, working or not. Let us come together. It was agreed, and those working also agreed, even though some dodged and went [to work]. But, the majority did not. So we wanted a strong march, and [to] send a message so that they fulfill our needs. (Interview 66, 23 April 2014, Tsakane, female, 32 years old).

Kaya’s explanation for the stay-away in Tsakane also highlighted a common underlying belief: because all residents stood to benefit from local protests, they should all participate. As I will show, this belief often fueled internal tension.

To implement stay-aways, activists often attempted to shut down transportation so that residents were physically unable to leave. In most instances, this meant blocking the 16-seat minibus vans that residents popularly referred to as ‘taxis’. Emerging within apartheid capitalism, the Black-run taxi industry developed into a behemoth with a wide consumer base, large bureaucratic structures, and significant political power. Local stay-aways typically featured attempts to block workers from accessing the taxis, as one resident explained,

Those guys who initiate strikes wake up early in the morning and they stop people who are working. They stand in each and every corner to stop people who go to work … We do have a taxi rank around here [in the informal settlement], but it becomes difficult to take them because these guys [protesters] stop them [workers] from going to work. (Interview 44, 31 October 2013, Motsoaledi, male, 25 years old)

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Activists often recalled their efforts to persuade local taxi drivers to support local protests. Only rarely, however, did these efforts meet with success. Protests often developed quickly, and taxi drivers frequently complained about the late notice. Yet, material considerations were also impor- tant. By canceling taxis for the day, local drivers risked loss of pay or punishment from their supe- riors. For one activist, this lack of support represented a betrayal, given that in the 1980s residents helped to chase away the apartheid-affiliated bus industry. Recalling his conversation with the taxi bosses, he noted that

we took out those buses around here so that you can operate your taxis … You forget that we as the youth, we were there to help you to have your own taxis. But today you [are] taking us for a ride. (Interview 75, 30 May 2014, Bekkersdal, male, 41 years old).

Unable to secure the support of taxi drivers, residents resorted to barricading roads to prevent others from escaping. This was a form of logistical power, but one directed inwards toward local workers rather than outwards toward the flow of capital. Kaya described the process during a recent protest:

We blocked the roads here at the taxi rank. We went to the owners and told them we have a march, but we gave them short notice. They said stop your people, but do not interfere with our taxi operations. So we decided to block the road by tires and rocks, so that they do not go inside … Because we agreed that no one will go to work. (Interview 66, 23 April 2014, Tsakane, female, 32 years old)

Not only did stay-aways put activists into conflict with local taxi drivers, but they also generated conflict between protesters and workers. As one resident explained, when I asked her whether protests secured widespread support from local residents,

Yes they do have the support of the community, apart from those who work, from the workers. Some, they don’t participate because they are afraid to be chased away from work [i.e. lose their job] … It creates very big tension. (Interview 37, 4 September 2013, Motsoaledi, female)

The tension between protesters and workers stemmed, at least partially, from the fact that unemployed and insecurely employed residents frequently dominated local protest actions. In some instances, protesters appeared insensitive to the situations of workers. Mpho, for exam- ple, expressed that it was easy for workers to miss work for a day, as all they had to do was tell their employer to turn on the television to see evidence of the protest. A bigger problem was that local organizing frequently involved only a small proportion of residents within the given residential area. Public meetings, typically held in open fields or sports grounds, were often remarkably democratic and well attended. Yet, even at their height, they usually included fewer than 1000 people, whereas residential areas or ‘communities’ typically included at least 10 times this amount. Whereas Motsoaledi, for example, had 10,000 resi- dents, the entirety of Bekkersdal – including the formal and informal settlements – included close to 50,000.

Like stay-aways, problematic assertions of community had an important history in South Africa. Anti-apartheid groups often claimed to represent an entire ‘community’, and government attempts to incorporate civil society interests – during and after the democratic transition – reinforced con- ceptions of monolithic ‘communities’ defined by singular interests (Chipkin, 1996; Friedman, 1992, 1993; Steinberg, 2000). Like these efforts, activist assertions that they alone represented a unified community downplayed diversity within urban residential areas. It was inevitable that

172 International Journal of Comparative Sociology 61(2-3)

some residents were either uninterested or unable to join local protests. The problem was espe- cially acute for workers, who had to cross the ‘picket line’ by leaving the residential area to get to work. One activist noted that

when you do these stay-aways, you will have people crying, saying, ‘but I will get fired’ … Because when you plan things during the day, they will be at work … [the next morning] they wake up to a burning tire, they have a problem. (Interview 95, 30 June 2015, Tsakane, male, 32 years old)

In some instances, the tensions led to physical conflict. Workers who skipped protests risked assault by angry protesters. Kaya, for example, described instances where they confronted workers to, ‘just stop them and make them join’ (Interview 66, 23 April 2014, Tsakane, female, 32 years old). Mpho similarly asserted that, once a protest began, activists did not allow anybody to leave: ‘If the community says no, you won’t go out … If you [try to leave], we do something … As long as you are within the community, you will participate in the strike’ (Interview 38, 16 September 2013, Motsoaledi, male, 20 years old; emphasis added). Many of my interviewees recalled instances of protesters beating up workers who skipped protests (see also Dawson, 2014b).

Feelings of resentment underpinned this antagonism. Activists consistently noted that all resi- dents, despite their varied employment situations, stood to benefit from local protests and stay- aways. For them, the common experience of economic hardship, due to poverty or a lack of electricity or formal housing, justified the antagonism that protesters visited upon their working neighbors. Mpho explained,

Workers are people who live in this community as well, and they are rushing to their jobs … That’s not fair, let’s be honest, while others are sacrificing. Why they cannot sacrifice? Because we [are] fighting for the same thing at the end of the day. So some other workers were kept, others were even slapped a little so that they get it inside their skull that this is a strike. (Interview 38, 16 September 2013, Motsoaledi, male, 20 years old; emphasis added).

Thabo, an activist from Thembelihle informal settlement, echoed these sentiments. He high- lighted a similar expectation of workers to choose the good of the community – which included their individual interests as residents – over their individual interests as workers:

What makes people angry is that at the end of the day, when we achieve this thing, everyone is going to achieve. Not only those who are participating in the protest. So you will find those people wanting to go to work … that’s why we end up fighting amongst ourselves, you see? Those who want to protest will fight with those who don’t want to participate. Will start beating them up, because they are like sell outs, you know? (Interview 88, 2 August 2014, Thembelihle, male, 25 years old)

When I asked Thabo what happened to workers who skipped protests, he described how protest- ers positioned themselves at the main entrances to the residential area and waited for the workers to return: ‘they will stay there, and they will start beating them up. They do beat them up’. This antagonism, visited upon workers after they returned home, hinted that the tensions extended beyond activist desires for large protests. The antagonism was also about resentment.

The stay-away tactic exposed internal economic divisions, with respect to both employment and income. Dumisani, a 21-year-old and unemployed activist, expressed frustration with those who detached from local struggles once they began to have individual success:

One thing about us as black people, we tend to say if you have something coming in, like an income, people do not see why other people are protesting … So for all the community members that are working,

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[they] were stopped that day to go to work, and take part in the protest; because it benefits us all, not certain individuals. (Interview 77, 12 June 2014, Bekkersdal, male, 21 years old)

Tumelo, another young activist, similarly argued that workers should join protests to show sup- port for their unemployed counterparts:

People who are unemployed felt that people who are employed were ignorant, because they work. So they wanted their support to say, our brothers are sitting here in the township, doing nothing, doing drugs. So, it turned out that those that are unemployed were fighting the employed ones. They did not want them to go to work. At some point, they say it was a stay-away, and if they find you in the taxi or on your way to work, they beat you up. (Interview 80, 20 June 2014, Bekkersdal, female, 23 years old)

These frustrations represented the opposite side of symbolic and logistical power. To the extent that workers exposed cracks in the idea of unified communities, they undermined the moral weight of protests. By reducing the overall size of protests, workers’ lack of participation also weakened protesters’ disruptive potential. Attacks against workers sought to resolve these weaknesses. In doing so, however, they undermined local solidarities.

Conclusion

By the time South Africa officially transitioned to democracy in the mid-1990s, the heyday of workplace bargaining power – a crucial backbone for social movement unionism in the 1980s – was already fading quickly. Like their counterparts in the rest of the world, South African unions struggled to cope with globalization and economic restructuring. This did not spell the end of workplace organization. Some unions continued to wage militant struggles, and some made con- certed efforts to organize especially vulnerable layers of the workforce. Many workers also organ- ized outside of formal unions to improve their working conditions. Yet, most residents of impoverished urban townships and informal settlements had little connection to these activities. In the absence of workplace organizing, they launched community strikes: collective struggles at the point of reproduction that targeted the state and relied on symbolic and logistical power. To do so, residents organized around demands for public service delivery, used disruptive tactics such as barricading roads and destroying property, and implemented stay-aways that called for boycotts of work and school.

Community strikes in South Africa enabled residents with little workplace power to forge soli- darity and make demands. They also met with some success, albeit very limited, as residents did manage to secure material concessions. In the case of Motsoaledi, for example, where residents waged militant struggles for a formal housing development in early 2013, by the end of the year the state began constructing houses. Within 2 years, many residents relocated from their tin shacks to formal houses. Likewise, in Bekkersdal, where protests exploded in late 2013 over a wide range of service delivery issues, the state launched a project the following year to replace the sewerage system. Residents and government officials alike celebrated these projects as victories resulting from their own efforts. In most instances, however, they represented minimal improvements to daily life. Most crucially, they did not provide income security. Residents still had to put food on the table and manage payments for water and electricity.

From a strategic or tactical perspective, the conflict between protesters and workers was an obvious limitation of the community strike in South Africa. This challenge is not unique to the community strike. Workplace strikes, of course, consistently thrust questions of solidarity to the fore. The greater the proportion of workers who choose to withhold their labor power, the greater

174 International Journal of Comparative Sociology 61(2-3)

their gains are likely to be. Yet, some workers may be more interested in working than striking, including those who are unemployed and enter the workplace as ‘scabs’. Working-class history offers many examples of conflict between strikers and strike-breakers. Due to the lack of work- place organizing, the community strike may amplify this challenge. In South Africa, workers who skipped work to join local stay-aways had to confront their employers individually, rather than collectively. This made them especially vulnerable to dismissal or other penalties, discouraging participation in protests and increasing the likelihood of conflict with protesters.

The problem of individual workers represents a structural flaw that local activists will not resolve easily. Within the areas where popular resistance is prevalent, workers scatter across a wide range of employers and worksites, and they often work in insecure jobs that make workplace organizing especially difficult. Given these challenges, it is not surprising that protester–worker tensions were so prevalent in South Africa. This raises the question of whether the community strike, and especially the stay-away tactic, is appropriate. It may be an effective approach for unemployed residents, who often have more flexibility than do employed residents to reschedule daily activities during protests. Yet, stay-aways put significant pressure on insecurely employed workers, who must go to work but often have little access to workplace organizing, leaving them vulnerable to antagonism from both employers and protesters.

How can insecure workers and the unemployed address these challenges of weak impact and internal division? One strategy is to develop better connections between existing workplace organ- ization and community strikes. This would bolster the strength of collective action by increasing the number of protesters and adding the threat of disruption to production. It may also reduce internal conflict and the vulnerability of workers who participate in extra-workplace protests. Such workplace–community connections, in South Africa and elsewhere, contributed to making social movement unionism a powerful weapon in previous periods. Due to the declining significance of workplace power, however, it is unlikely that activists will be able to replicate these earlier efforts. Rather than seeking to recover the workplace strike, or in addition to doing so, activists may con- sider ways to strengthen community strikes.

The South African examples reveal useful clues with respect to each of the three elements of the community strike: reproduction, logistical and symbolic power, and the state. In terms of reproduc- tion, focusing on place-based communities proved extremely useful for building local solidarity and especially symbolic power. Yet, this approach isolated activists from their counterparts in other residential areas. It also amplified the need for local participation and conformity around a com- mon agenda. Activists do not need to emphasize place-based communities to make demands around social reproduction. They may choose, instead, to loosen notions of community to extend beyond the local and focus on building connections across residential areas. Broader solidarity would reduce the pressure to produce a united front locally. Rather than attacking workers who skip protests, activists can focus their efforts on combining the forces that they do manage to mus- ter with parallel forces in other areas.

Extending the reach of solidarity has important implications for both the forms of power that activists develop, and who they target. With respect to power, building a broader network of com- munity struggles might dilute the moral weight associated with place-based communities. As more impoverished residents join resistance efforts, however, they have the potential to open new and potentially even greater sources of symbolic power that refer to wider swaths of society. Equally important, if not more so, is the potential expansion of logistical power. In South Africa, local protests typically focused on blocking roads adjacent to residential areas, often with only limited impact on the daily flow of workers and goods. With expanded networks, however, activists may be able to disrupt more crucial nodes of economic activity, including freeways, factories, and finance hubs. Finally, to the extent that activists manage to achieve such disruptions, they may also

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begin to target entities beyond the state, most notably business. Eventually, activists could pressure businesses to fund state-led projects and social protection.

It is certainly much easier to write about these extensions of the community strike than it is to execute them. In South Africa, for example, it is primarily due to a lack of resources, rather than a lack of imagination or awareness, that activists fail to implement them. The community strike idea does not eliminate the vulnerabilities and challenges of informal workers and unemployed resi- dents. It does underscore, however, that these groups have agency and the potential to create social change, despite their limited access to workplace organizing and workplace power.

Acknowledgements

This research benefited from the excellent research assistance of Nhlakanipo Lukhele, as well as support from the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg and the University Research Committee at the University of Utah. Participants in two seminars, one at the University of Johannesburg (June 2015) and another at a conference on Precarious Work in Seattle (August 2016), provided valuable feedback on previous versions of the paper, as did the anonymous reviewers, the guest editors, and the journal editor.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Marcel Paret https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1031-2270

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