About Us
The Labour Research Service (LRS) is a membership-based labour support organisation founded in 1986 in Cape Town.
VISION
The labour movement is an integral part of a vibrant civil society, which promotes egalitarianism through the provision of coherent alternatives for greater economic, social and political justice.
MISSION
To develop in a participative and accessible way, an objective and independent research and resource base that will shape the discourse on the alternative strategies necessary to strengthen labour and civil society representation and influence on issues of production and distribution in the economy.
LRS strengthens worker organisation, representation and democratic practice through research, convening and strategic facilitation. We are a labour research, education and movement-support organisation working at the intersection of knowledge production, democratic practice and social dialogue. Our work is shaped by the understanding that workers’ lived experience is not anecdotal, but a source of political insight.
Our distinctive contribution lies in helping worker organisations build the strategic capacity to organise, negotiate and influence in a changing world of work. We do this by translating complex economic, political and social processes into usable analysis, tools and spaces for collective learning and action.
LRS character
LRS exists to strengthen worker organisation, democratic practice and strategic capacity. We work as a knowledge broker, translator and interpreter, and convener and space-holder, bringing together research, facilitation, communication and movement-support in ways that are useful to trade unions and worker formations.
We are guided by a worker-centred, movement-led practice. We produce research for action, not for publication alone. We understand democracy as lived practice, and we recognise that gender, race, class, precarity, unpaid and underpaid care work and gender-based violence all shape participation and power in the world of work. We approach technology as political terrain.
Strategic priorities
01. Organisation and Representation
The hub around which all other LRS programmes turn.
02. Technology and Platform Work
Supporting worker-centred engagement with technological change, digital systems and platform work.
03. Trade and Industrial Policy
Strengthening trade union capacity to engage trade, supply chains and industrial policy.
04. Care Economy and Feminist Political Economy
Advancing a worker- and community-centred care economy agenda.
05. Just Transition and Climate Justice
Supporting worker-led responses to climate change and economic transition.
06. Creating and Holding Spaces for Democratic Practice
LRS is a convener of safe, inclusive and strategic spaces for dialogue and learning.
07. Governance, Sustainability and Fundraising
We approach sustainability and resourcing strategically. In a volatile funding environment, we prioritise work that strengthens organisation and representation, builds institutional credibility, and protects LRS’s long-term capacity to serve the labour movement.
Strategic outcomes
- Stronger worker organisations and leadership
- Increased capacity to negotiate, organise and influence
- Democratic, inclusive organisational cultures
- Transformation of gendered power relations
- Sustainable LRS institutional base
LRS theory of change
CONTEXT
Fragmented worker organisation, accelerating technological and economic change, growing care burdens, climate transition pressures
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LRS INTERVENTION
Research + Convening + Facilitation + Communication
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CORE PRACTICE
Creating and holding democratic spaces
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CAPACITY BUILT
Organised worker leadership
Negotiation and bargaining power
Strategic understanding of trade, technology and care
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OUTCOMES
Stronger organisation and representation
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IMPACT
Democratic, worker-led responses to economic and social transition
Our constituency
- Organised and unorganised workers in both formal and informal employment
- Workers and worker organisations in more marginalised sectors, for example, care workers, employees of labour brokers, farmworkers, and women in services sectors
- Public sector workers
Leadership and governance
The LRS is union-controlled, with 15 member trade unions representing over two million workers in South Africa. We work across federation lines, creating and supporting spaces that are inclusive and which emphasise commonality.
Member trade unions
LRS Board
Our board is a mix of trade union worker leaders and officials elected at an annual general meeting. The LRS Executive Director is ex-officio director. The board provides an oversight role and grounds LRS in the trade union movement. The directors serve without pay.
Current Board members
Sandisa Jam Jam (SACCAWU); Lawrence Ntuli (SAMWU); Mike Fafuli (NUM); Cindy De Lange (SADTU); Musawenkosi Malabela (NEHAWU); Trenton Elsley (LRS).
Registration number: 1986/002993/08 | VAT registration number: 4810105587 | Tax registration number: 945/0255/03/0 | NPO registration number: 050-326-NPO