The song was originally sung by migrant workers who toiled in the bowels of Apartheid South Africa. In addition to facing oppression as black people, they experienced alienation from their families when they were forced to live away from their families in single sex hostels close to the mines of Apartheid South Africa.
The legacy of this element of the migrant labour system is the systematic and eventual break down of the African family unit: fathers, husbands and brothers left the reserves where black people had been banished to (let's not forget the Southern African migrant labourers whose sweat, blood and lives helped build the white economy), leaving mothers to fulfil both the role of mother and father in the home. Children grew up without fathers and the men working in the cities would eventually form new families in the city.
When these men sang Shosholoza, they weren't singing to celebrate that they had jobs, nor were they celebrating a victory. They were coping with trying to eke out a living in a system that was designed to break them, a system that controlled all of their movements at all times.
That is a small part of why I cringe everytime I hear the song being sung at sports games or in expression of some kind of South African pride. That and people sound like douche bags when they can't be bothered to pronounce the words when singing the song at rugby games while waving the old flag.
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