Once I asked whether he preferred enemies who hated him because they knew what he was doing or those who frothed and foamed out of ignorance. He laughed. The former was preferable, he explained, because they made him feel that he was on the right track. Hugo Chávez's...
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Tebogo: the plight of a female mineworker| by Jeanne Hefez
My name is Tibugo, I'm one of the strike committee leaders at Anglo American in Rustenburg. I work as a PTV (personnel transport vehicle operator) at Amplats, I do mostly pipe work. Sometimes I clean the tunnels. It's extremely labor intensive. I've been here for a...
After the massacre: The Women’s Solidarity Forum | by Jeanne Hefez
Nomfulela's husband, Apa November, arrives from work around 3pm, covered in sweat under the scorching sun of Marikana and overly dressed in his rock driller outfit. He has spent twelve hours underground chasing a meager bonus with a 75kg machine in hand. Before the...
South Africa does not support the death penalty, or does it?
The groundWork team Almost a week after the Marikana Massacre and in the midst of a week of mourning for those who were tragically killed at the Lonmin mine, the groundWork team sends their condolences to the families of the deceased and reflects on what this series...
The forgotten history of Workers’ Olympics | by Terry Bell
In this week of Women's Day, the 30th summer Olympiad is coming to an end. Over the past week and more, women and men from all backgrounds have displayed their sporting abilities, watched on television by more than 1 billion people around the world. But it was not...
What’s Wrong with a 30-Hour Work Week? | by Don Fitz
There is something problematic with advocating a 30-hour work week at the beginning of the 21st century: a 30 hour week is not short enough! With millions of jobs lost during the first part of 2009, who is calling for a shorter work week to spread the work around? Not...
“Art is a hammer to shape reality”: PalFest breaks the siege of Gaza | by Ayah Bashir
Amid the focus on the economic hardships caused by Israel’s ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip, it has been easy for many to overlook the fact that the territory’s 1.6 million people have been kept under a cultural siege as well. This is ironic because much...
European Semi-periphery | by Christos Papatheodorou, Spyros Sakellaropoulos, and Paris Yeros
Introduction The Greek crisis represents the deepening of a long systemic contradiction whose origins lie in the 1960s, in the stagnation of monopoly capitalism and the emergence of the South. The industrial centers of the world economy were struck by a crisis of...
May Day: From history to saving the future | by Jeff Rudin
We are about to celebrate May Day. There are important connections between this May 1st holiday and the proposed amendments to key labour legislation, unemployment and climate change. Developing these connections is best begun by noting Labour’s very public outrage...






