Russsian bureaucrats have been honestly surprised at the reaction by the official West – they did not expect such anger or unanimous condemnation. European politicians are beside themselves with fury. The mainstream press is relating appalling stories to its readers...
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Feature: 20 Years of Democracy
As South Africa passes the anniversary of 20 years of democracy it is important to reflect on both the failures and successes of democratic South Africa. South Africa in 2014 is a markedly different country. it enjoys a pluralistic political system; freedom of speech...
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...
Mining strike: Whose reality is ‘the real world’?
Everyone, other thaN lunatics, troublemakers and the economically illiterate, is supposed to know that the demand by the striking platinum workers for a starting basic wage of R12 500 is plainly unaffordable. Indeed, anything even near R12 500 is supposedly so...
Interview with Irvin Jim
At NUMSA's Special Congress in December you voted to hold socio-economic strikes, the first of which is coming up on 19 March to oppose the Employment Tax Incentive. Could you describe what a socio-economic strike is and why NUMSA is opposed to the tax incentive? I...
From Durban to Marikana: A new trajectory of the worker’s movement
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...
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...
South Africa: Snubbing quotas for women, snubs transformation
by Katherine Robinson Johannesburg, 7 February: While South Africa celebrates 20 years of democracy this year, the country will also be holding its national election, the first since 1994, without Madiba. If the last two months are anything to go by, we will surely...
