A Workers’ Education Curriculum with No Production Issues?

Despite massive changes in production, workers’ education, especially in South Africa, is misaligned with the radical transformation of the labour process and the introduction of new technologies in the workplace. Understandably, workers’ education in South Africa has tended to focus on wages and politics because black labour under Apartheid was cheap. Based on in-depth interviews and internet sources, this research paper shows that workers’ education in South Africa generally covers what I call redistribution themes, which include wages, benefits, and, in many instances, politics of upward social mobility at the expense of production, which affects workers negatively in the form of retrenchments, changes in skills, and increased work pace. This omission has effectively left production-related matters in the hands of employers, who prioritise advancing and protecting their profit interests.