Book 13

Street Traders

by Ercument Celik

Published 20 July 2010
How much did the transition from apartheid to post-apartheid change the lives of the 'truly disadvantaged' in South Africa? How do these people struggle against their marginalisation and exclusion in the post-apartheid era? This book seeks answers by exploring the new democratic street trader organisations, the shack-dwellers' movement, their relations with trade unions and their alliance in the 'World Class Cities For All' campaign on the way to the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The author explains how the mobilisation of street traders' struggles inadvertently brought together social movements with trade unions, emphatically signalling the potential reactivation of 'social movement unionism' in contemporary South Africa.