STUDY LABOUR AND SOCIAL JUSTICE BEYOND DECENT WORK Fighting for Unions and Equality in Africa Lucien van der Walt May 2019 The International Labour Organi­sation’s Decent Work agenda has positive aspects, but is not feasi­ble or desirable in the neo-liberal epoch. African labour should rather build class-based counter-power and counter-hegemony, aiming at a new system: common ownership, self-management and bottom-up planning. This means rejecting corporatism and union involvement in elector­al politics; instead opting for au­tonomy, globalisation-from­below, alliances with peasants, the unemployed and the poor, as well as union-backed healthcare, media and production. Union reform, driven by rank­and-file movements, must learn from Africa’s dramatic history of union successes and failings.