Eddie Webster
Copyright 2009
Edward Webster is Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand and is a research professor in the Society, Work and Development Institute SWOP) at the University. He has degrees from Rhodes University, University of the Witwatersrand, York University and Oxford University, England. He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1995. He is on the International Advisory Board of the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Labour, Capital and Society and Work, Employment and Society and the Labour Studies Journal . He recently launched a new journal , the Global Labour Journal, in collaboration with McMaster University in Canada. He co-edited a volume with Karl von Holdt, titled Beyond the Apartheid Workplace: Studies in Transition (University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal Press). He is a past president of the Research Committee on Labour Movements of the International Sociological Association and an adjunct professor in the School of Business at the University of Western Australia. He was chair of the Global Labour University at the University of the Witwatersrand from 2006-2009, a global initiative by the International Labour Organisation with campuses in Germany, Brazil and India. His most recent book Grounding Globalisation: Labour in the Age of Insecurity. was published by Blackwells, Oxford in May 2008 and won the prestigious American Sociological Association award for the best book published on labour in 2008. Professor Webster has been rated by the National Research Foundation has a leading international scholar in his field. He was recently appointed by the Minister of Finance as a non-executive director of the Development Bank of South Africa. His current research is on export process zones ? or what we call industrial development zones ? in China , Mexico and South Africa and it advising the Minister of Economic Development in Gauteng on the introduction of Decent Work in the province. In October he takes up a one-year appointment as the first Ela Bhatt Chair of Development and Decent Work at Kassel University in Germany. Professor Webster spent a year on trial in South Africa in 1976 after being arrested and charged with calling for the release from prison of Nelson Mandela.
An email to the Group via Eric
Hi Eric
Thanks very much for inviting me to this wonderful reunion of the KDS Class of 1969. I was very honored to be invited as I have such positive memories of the Class of 1969 and , indeed , of the nearly two years I spent at KDHS. This is partly because I met my wife at KDHS ? Luli Zampetakis (now Callinicos) ? but also because you were all such wonderful students. I do not mean by this that you were well-behaved; the reason why you were such good students is that you were very open-minded and curious. I went on to study further at the University of Oxford after I left KDHS in October 1969 ? just before your matric exams!!! ? and have spent my working career at universities. But University students cannot be compared with high school students , and certainly not the KDS Class of 1969 ! University students are cynical and over-sophisticated; you were eager to discover the world.
I can see that you have all done very well in your careers although it saddens me that most of you live abroad. But it was a privilege being part of your lives for a short time .
Shalom. I wish you all an east fast
Shana Tovah
Eddie Webster
Professor Emeritus
University of the Witwatersrand.
Ela Bhatt Professor of Development and Decent Work
Kassel University
Germany.