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This article uses the life story of Alfred Makwarimba, the founding president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and a career trade unionist, to examine how trade unionism and its leadership in particular transformed under the impact of neoliberalism in Zimbabwe from the 1990s. Existing scholarship focusses on aspects of labour’s political unionism during neoliberalism. This paper builds on this literature by exploring the endurance of workerism and varied agency of union leaders during this period. It argues that the neoliberal turn transformed trade unionism resulting in continuous struggles between government and labour, and within labour itself. For Makwarimba, neoliberalism gave him renewed agency and relevance. Data from interviews and secondary sources presented in this paper show that he maximised on the liberalisation of labour relations during the 1990s to reinvigorate and set his trade union career on a new trajectory from the decline of the 1980s. It also shows that while neoliberalism, indeed, radicalised labour politics, it also democratised unionism, enabling the flourishment of freedom of association and expression of individual abilities, capabilities and autonomy. The paper, thus, contributes to our understanding of trade unionism’s struggles as it evolved from state corporatism to political unionism and the eventual emergence of workerism, all punctuated by internal fights, and incessant attacks from the state and capital.

From state corporatism to workerism: Alfred Makwarimba and trade unionism in Zimbabwe under neoliberalism