Industrial Relations, Global Labor Organizations, and Unity Against Apartheid in a Multipolar World

Throughout the turbulent apartheid era, South African anti-apartheid activists leveraged their
narrow access to labor organizing space to build international solidarity and global support for Black liberation. Centering industrial relations and the political economy of the apartheid workplace, this paper exposes the threads tethering South African workers to global labor organizations. It argues that South African labor leaders leveraged connections to global labor networks, dictating the terms of international relations. As decolonization hastened the rise of multipolarity, South Africans appealed to a variety of audiences, including African states and labor organizations. They also drew support and legitimacy through their ties to global union federations. Solidarity with South African worker-led movements, both symbolic and financial, could be harnessed through the assistance of governing worker organizations, like the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) or global labor bodies like the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO). As continual apartheid violence engendered international condemnation, South African labor leaders took advantage of and used the international labor system to foment solidarity on their own terms.