In January 1973 dockworkers in Durban embarked on a wave of wildcat strikes against low wages, in total some 61000 workers took part in these strikes. The Durban moment not only smashed the industrial relations framework that had been established after black trade...
left
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...
Responses
Sakhela Buhlungu: It has taken more than 20 years for the dominant current of South Africa's labour movement to begin to emerge from stasis resulting from its embeddedness within the ruling political block led by the African National Congress. The massacre of...
Taking Politics beyond the Factory Seriously
by Richard Pithouse Numsa's's resolve to break with both the ANC and the authority that the SACP has tried to exert over the union movement carries the potential for a real political opening. The union's commitment to work with other struggles, including community...
The phony war in Ukraine
By Boris Kagarlitsky March 4, 2014 Why, do you suppose, war has not yet broken out between Russia and Ukraine? The answer is very simple: no one plans to go to war, and no one can. Kiev for practical purposes does not have an army, while the government that has...
UNCLE SAM’S BLOCKBUSTER MOVIES
Book Review REEL POWER: HOLLYWOOD CINEMA AND AMERICAN SUPREMACY AUTHOR: MATTHEW ALFORD PLUTO PRESS 2010 Just when you thought it was safe to start watching the latest Hollywood blockbuster (that pirated copy of the Bourne Identity you got from a friend of a friend),...
UNCLE SAM’S BLOCKBUSTER MOVIES
Book Review REEL POWER: HOLLYWOOD CINEMA AND AMERICAN SUPREMACY AUTHOR: MATTHEW ALFORD PLUTO PRESS 2010 Just when you thought it was safe to start watching the latest Hollywood blockbuster (that pirated copy of the Bourne Identity you got from a friend of a friend),...
EFF and the left | by Benjamin Fogel
In Gill Hart's excellent new book Rethinking the South Africa crisis, she points to a rather curious phenomenon as part of her engagement with the figure of one Julius Malema and the 'populist' turn he represents. She notes that for a change the far left and liberal...
The Kurdish Question in the Syrian Arab Spring | by Joe Lombardo
Calls resounding in the halls of power and in the media for American intervention in Syria have opened up a debate that has been over two years in the making: exactly who are the Syrian rebels? According to Moscow and some segments of the left, they are radical...
