This fourth volume in the Hidden Voices Series is about Oukasie, a township in the Madibeng municipality. At various times in its history, its inhabitants have struggled against problems such as forced removals, terrible living conditions and corrupt officials.

Bonds of Justice: The Struggle for Oukasie tells the story of a dedicated young group of people who were motivated by their belief that accountable and responsible leadership was needed to improve the situation of their community and its members. Before and after apartheid, they worked together to bring much-needed change to their community. This book tells the stories of those struggles in the 1980s and 1990s, and goes on to describe the problems faced by Oukasie and the wider community when the ethics of accountability were forgotten.

The book has many lessons for South Africa today – the benefits that accountable governance can achieve, and what the costs are when a more selfish approach takes root.

This volume traces the themes of power, independence, and workers' control as they were practiced by Numsa. A number of small metal organizations, with at times antagonistic organizational and political strategies, were built in different ways and with different attitudes to the exiled liberation movements of the early 1980s. They eventually unified into one powerful organization. Forrest describes how workers' struggles built this power, and she scrutinizes the strategies used in the late 1980s, such as innovative bargaining strategies, to significantly improve the conditions of South Africa's impoverished workers. The volume then progresses to examine how Numsa used its power in an attempt to insert a workers' perspective into the political transition of the early 1990s. It explores the obstacles the union faced, such as the violence that erupted across the country, and its commonality and divergence from the politics of the liberation movements (chiefly the ANC).