10 Years of Labour Voices on the Air-waves!

10th Anniversary celebrations!

Labour voices on the Air-waves

The Diggz Youth A'live leadership and media project

Labour voices on the airwaves across Africa!

Labour Film Festival 2009

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WWMP

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Salt River Road
Salt River
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10 Years of Labour voices on the Air-waves!

This year we celebrate a decade of our existence. Having started as a small project of the Trade Union Library and Education Centre (TULEC) and later the Labour Research Service, WWMP has grown tremendously with several major labour and working class oriented media projects.

Background to Workers World Media Productions

During September – December 1997, a collective of labour service organisations carried out a radio pilot project, called Workers World. It consisted of 12 weekly 30-minute slots on Bush Radio, a community radio station, focusing on issues relevant to workers and the labour movement. At the evaluation meetings at the end of the pilot project, it was agreed by the participating organisations to set up an independent radio production project. This decision was based on the obvious need for radio productions focussing on labour related issues and our successful execution of the pilot project.

The collective agreed to carry out a feasibility study and preparatory work for setting up the project. This was completed during 1998. During this time the three trade union federations, COSATU, FEDUSA and NACTU along with three labour service organisations, Trade Union Library and Education Centre (TULEC), Industrial Health Research Group (IHRG) and the International Labour Resource and Information Group (ILRIG), agreed to participate in the setting up and future governance of the organisation.

Why WWMP, then known as Workers World Radio Productions?

Due to a variety of reasons the profile of the labour movement and labour issues had declined since the mid-nineties. Most references in the popular media to trade unions and their activities were and still are cast in a negative light and portrayed as harmful to investment prospects and economic growth. This is despite the positive contribution that the labour movement and workers made in the anti-Apartheid struggle and still do in transforming South Africa. Despite the weakened state of the labour movement when compared to the 1980s, it is still the largest, most organised and well- resourced grouping within civil society.

At the time we were convinced that radio, as the most accessible and popular medium, could play a vital role in strengthening the democratic process in South Africa and the effective role of the trade union movement, especially amongst ordinary workers. It is for this broad purpose that the project, Workers World Radio Productions (WWRP) was set up. WWRP aimed to produce programmes, that were intended to inform, educate and uplift the cultural levels of the people of South Africa, especially working women and men.

In line with its constitutional aims, WWRP (later WWMP) has played a multi-faceted role for the labour movement, whilst still retaining its editorial independence. The role of the project has included providing the trade union movement access to the airwaves. It has enabled workers and trade unionists to express their views in the form of quality productions and consequently enhanced their democratic role within civil society. Our project work and media productions have been a means of:

* Disseminating information
* Education and Political conscientising
* Supporting grassroots organisation building
* Artistic development and appreciation
* Entertainment

In the current context of worsening poverty for the majority of South Africans and the lack of progressive community based organisations evidenced by the wave of xenophobic violence across the country in 2008, our main projects have re-orientated themselves to increasingly focus on supporting the building of grassroots organisation and leadership development with media as an important tool for this.

WWMP now employs 14 full-time staff and has two offices, Cape Town and Johannesburg. Its current projects and activities include the:

* Labour-Community Radio Project
* Diggz Youth Alive Leadership and Media Project
* Africa Labour Radio Project
* Weekly labour show on Cape Town TV
* Labour Film Festivals
* Production of popular publications

10th Anniversary Celebrations !

During the week of 11 – 15th May 2009 we will be having several activities to celebrate our decade of existence. These include a 1-day conference and media training for all our project participants, the annual labour film festival and the 1st Labour Media Awards.

Click here to download the programme

Labour Voices on the Air-waves !

The Labour Community Radio Project enters another year of working closely with over 40 community radio stations across the 9 provinces of South Africa. The project’s main activity is the production of 32 weeks of labour programming to support the locally produced weekly 1-hour labour shows. These are produced in English, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho and Afrikaans and sent to the community radio stations on a weekly basis. This year the programming will change and instead of 3 different productions (a labour feature of the week –8 minutes, labour news of the week- 5 minutes and an HIV&AIDS feature of 4 minutes) we will now every week be producing and sending a long in-depth feature of 15 minutes every week to allow for more detailed studio discussion with local guests. The new labour shows have started during the last week of April with a special programme on Mayday.

Labour shows in action across the country are produced by local labour hosts comprised of trade unionists and community representatives. They produce the 1-hour live labour show using the labour productions in their broadcast language and invite studio guests to discuss and debate to inform and educate listeners.
During 2009 the labour shows will cover and focus on: Trade Unions and Politics, Xenophobia and Racism, Occupational Health and Safety, Marginalised Workers, Gender, HIV & AIDS. See the list of LCRP topics for 2009 (below) and listen to your local community radio station. Remember you can inform us of your hot labour news stories on 021-4476845.

Labour Community Radio Forums – taking radio and community mobilisation seriously

The labour radio shows at community radio stations need to be supported to survive. Labour hosts are setting up forums where labour and other community groups and activists can get involved in building the labour shows and utilising it for community education and mobilising.

Through the Mass Education Project we hope to promote and support local activities like film festivals and seminars in communities to promote local solidarity and activism around issues that affect communities. As part of these activities two popular education booklets have been produced by WWMP on solidarity, featuring Swaziland & Zimbabwe, and another on Palestine. These booklets are meant to be used in study-circle activities for local political education. Look out for the release of these booklets via our website www.wwmp.org.za

Radio is still the most popular medium of working class people – according to our recent Audience Research in partnership with CASE. According to the report, “The majority of focus group participants felt that the labour show and the radio as a medium for communication was effective in addressing labour issues and that the language in which the shows were presented were appropriate.”

For more on these findings go to www.wwmp.org.za - copy of the Report is located in the right hand column

During the week of 11 – 15 May, nearly 100 labour hosts from all over the country will assemble at Community House in Salt River for the 2009 – 2010 project orientation and training. This will co-incide with the WWMP 10th Anniversary celebrations.

Labour Voices on the Airwaves Across Africa!

After two years in the making the Africa Labour Radio Project will finally take off in 2009. Starting in April this year people on the African continent can tune in to the weekly Africa Labour Show on SABC Channel Africa.

In fact the show can be accessed globally through streaming via the Internet and satellite. The project aims to support the labour and emerging social movements on the continent in strengthening their media and consequently organisational capacity. It involves a partnership between WWMP and the trade union federations of 10 African countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Lesotho and South Africa).

The Africa wide show on SABC Channel Africa is intended to promote an information exchange and political dialogue between workers on the continent. At the same time local weekly labour shows are being developed in each country and broadcast on national public radio and various community radio stations. Previously these shows were mainly pre-recorded with two trained labour radio reporters sending audio interviews to Cape Town for final production. This year the local shows will be live and final training of hosts and producers for these will be done in Cape Town during the week of 11 – 15 May 2009.

SHOWS IN THE FIRST SEASON FOR 2009