Jacob Thank you for the recent state visit. Joburg’s changed quite a bit since I was last there. (I was expecting to get hijacked, lol!) Sorry not to get to Nkandla and meet your people. But, please can you speak to your king? He’s causing chaos for my people on...
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Getting the energy mix right: towards a publicly driven, socially owned renewable energy sector | by Sandra van Niekerk
In his State of the Nation address of 26 June 2014, President Zuma called for "a radical transformation of the energy sector, to develop a sustainable energy mix that comprises coal, solar, wind, hydro, gas and nuclear energy ". Not content with building Medupi and...
20 years of democracy: not yet Uhuru
As we mark 20 years since the end of apartheid and the advent of democracy, there is a deep rupturing of the post-apartheid social consensus in the face of intensifying class struggle. The signals for its end are the Marikana massacre, the great mineworkers' strike...
Numsa and the crisis in the Cosatu: What now?
by Benjamin Fogel During the 1980s the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) was the figurehead of the so-called 'workerist' tendency within the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and has always been on the left in Cosatu. Although Numsa...
Till death do us part? The future of COSATU
For the leadership of the ANC and SACP an independent and militant worker controlled and independent trade union federation is too dreadful to contemplate– especially as we approach the 2014 national and provincial elections. What if COSATU refused to campaign for or...
Commemorating Marikana: The Spirit of Mambush Lives on
Luke Sinwell and Siphiwe Mbatha On 16 August 2013, exactly one year after the Marikana Massacre, 20,000 workers peacefully commemorated that fateful day. Church leaders, political parties, progressives and the workers themselves addressed the crowd – including...
The state of the struggle:Lonmin workers’ organising one year later
by Benjamin Fogel The Lonmin Worker's Council was birthed by last year's wildcat strike at the London Mining (Formerly London Rhodesian mining) mines in Marikana. The strike itself emanated from a long-running dispute between workers and management stemming both from...
The Amplats workers’ committee dilemma | by Benjamin Fogel
The Amplats workers' committee formed during last year's Marikana wildcat strike on the platinum belt. The Amplats strike did not begin because of the events at Lonmin; it arose out of a long-running dispute between workers, NUM and Amplats. Since June 2012 workers at...
Aspects of the International Class Struggle in Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas| by Walter Rodney
Political conferences of the oppressed invariably attract a variety of responses - varying from cynical conviction that they are an utter waste of time to naïve optimism that they will change the face of the world. In actuality, popular struggle continues from day to...

