By Steve Ouma

Rather than glow in anticipation of next year’s World Cup soccer extravaganza, hosts South Africa have lately been in the news for a different reason — unending labour unrest.

Undoubtedly, this year’s political transition has triggered a workers surge toward claiming for rights and meaningful emancipation. A similar transition scenario was observed in Kenya after the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) win in the 2002 General Election.

That year, Narc trounced Kanu and its candidate Uhuru Kenyatta in cut-throat electoral competition. The victory was made possible by the unprecedented unity in opposition political party ranks, under the compromise or common candidature of Mwai Kibaki. What lured voters towards Narc was their promise to deliver social rights like free primary school education, health care and providing 500,000 jobs annually.

This public declaration to transform livelihoods and restore human rights, which previous Kanu regimes considered privileges, attracted voters in their millions. The protracted campaign created rights awareness and expanded the democratic space of groups like workers.

The rallying slogan was: Yote yawezekana (Emancipation: Goodies are now within reach after Kanu’s humbling at the polls) to engage in dignified work. It worked like magic.

In January 2003, Export Processing Zone (EPZ) workers went on what the authorities called ‘wild cat’ strikes demanding for an end to sexual harassment of women workers and improvement of their wages and working conditions. At the end of it, employers allowed trade unions into the EPZs. All seemed truly well after the Kanu years.

South Africa’s story has not been any different. For the ruling Africa National Congress (ANC), the 2009 elections shattered the image of ANC as a homogenous nationalist movement. It was at the Polokwane Conference that the ANC wing, allied to Jacob Zuma, trounced the faction sympathetic to the then president Thabo Mbeki.

Mr Zuma ascended to presidency after a convincing win, mobilising his supporters with the promise of "Service delivery" and riding a wave dubbed "Second Liberation" energised by his trade mark song Umshini Wami.

Soon thereafter, reality dawned as it turns out Zuma’s ANC could not please all the people all the time.

Workers downed their tools demanding better pay. Those in the construction sector had the best corner and used the World Cup stadia as bargaining chips. In most cases, the State and besieged corporations budged.

The political moments of Kenya’s 2002 and South Africa’s 2009 elections demonstrate that awareness of rights increases when they are publicly stated or declared, when politicians guarantee they would honour pledges and when liberties are made visible by laws or policies.

In short, just as no one incited the EPZ Workers in 2003, no one has incited doctors, construction and council workers in South Africa. It is testimony that demanding cannot be divorced from awareness of the same rights.

At the time EPZ workers took to the streets in January 2003, most Kenyans were jobless and those who had jobs, occupied precarious employments and toiled under laws that were poorly designed and were therefore easy to manipulate to ensure cheap and abundant labour. Exploitative labour laws were never changed with the ushering of Narc Government.

In South Africa, the ANC government has over the years been hostile and vitriolic to individuals and groups who call for better corporate accountability and an end of "economic apartheid". The government had until last month backed companies that benefited from the apartheid regime against their victims claims for compensation under America’s 200 years old alien tort statute.

Then there is the mining industry described by its entrepreneurs as being largely instrumental in developing South Africa. But places where miners come from like Transkei and neighbouring Lesotho remain the most forsaken and impoverished in the region.

Even among most post-apartheid enterprises, the remuneration gaps are so wide that Chief Executive Officers earn 298 times more (on average) than an ordinary worker. Meaning that it would take the low wage worker more than six lifetimes to earn what a CEO earns in one year in South Africa.

South Africa andKenya should respond more genuinely to the question of workers in post-authoritarian regimes.