Deborah (Debbie) Budlender received a five-year banning order in late November 1976 alongside more than 20 other people working in the nascent black trade union movement. At the time, she had just completed her honours studies at the University of Cape Town (UCT). While studying, she was very active in student politics, serving for two years in the students' representative council and playing a lead role in the local Wages Commission. During her honours year, she worked part-time in the Western Province Workers Advice Bureau (which later became the General Workers Union) in administration and advice-giving.
While banned, Debbie worked as a receptionist/secretary for a gynaecologist and later a GP, as well as in a bookshop and as a programmer in computer companies. Immediately after being unbanned, Debbie started working for the South African Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) at UCT. Together with Gordon Young, she established the Labour Research Service within SALDRU and also participated in the Second Carnegie Conference on Poverty. From 1984 to 1988, Debbie worked as head office administrator and researcher of the Food & Canning Workers Union, which, while she was there, merged with the Sweet Food and Allied Workers Union to form the Food and Allied Workers Union.
From 1988 to 2012, Debbie worked as a social policy researcher for the non-profit Community Agency for Social Enquiry. For the first decade at the organisation, Debbie assisted hundreds of progressive organisations in using computers to support their work. Over this period, she was seconded part-time to a series of different organisations and institutions, including the Law, Race & Gender Research Unit at UCT, the national office of the National Women's Coalition, Statistics South Africa, and the Centre for Actuarial Research at UCT. After 2012, Debbie continued to work independently, doing social policy research.
In 2018, Debbie started working part-time for the Denis Goldberg Legacy Foundation Trust, where she helped establish and currently directs the Denis Goldberg House of Hope, an arts and culture education centre for the children and youth of Hout Bay.
