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...
permanent
Is Bureaucracy killing COSATU?
Bureaucracy is defined as management or administration marked by hierarchical authority among numerous offices and by fixed procedures. The abuse of power by officials is a very old phenomenon in the labour movement worldwide. Bureaucratisation is seen in this article...
Marikana and the crisis of Migrancy | by Micah Reddy
The Marikana massacre and unrest on South Africa's mines in 2012 elicited a flurry of analysis, much of it superficial and too hastily produced to be of any real use. One of the more authoritative accounts, however, came from former trade unionist Gavin Hartford, now...
Farmworker Housing | by Benjamin Fogel
The housing crisis is not merely confined to the cities and towns of South Africa; it is at the heart of political struggles in rural areas as well. Farmworkers not only face the same types of issues as those who dwell in urban areas, but also face some that are...
A tale of two museums | by Andre Marais
Landlocked Timbuktu in Mali and coastal Cape Town are 6,000 kilometres apart from one another but they are both under threat: one museum by a religious fundamentalism, the other by economics. Both museums are preserving important historical and heritage sites. Both...
Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestic Workers in Asia | by Pei-Chia Lan
The increasing prosperity of East Asia since the mid-1970s has stimulated substantial international migration within the region. It is estimated that the number of temporary migrant workers in Asia, with or without legal documents, reached 6.1 million by 2000.[1]...
Unions challenge govt. – and opposition
The mass strike on Wednesday was only nominally about e-tolling on public roads and the problem of labour brokers. It was, in fact, a serious shot across the bow of government about the deteriorating conditions faced by wage earners, the poor and the unemployed....
The Politics of Combined and Uneven Development: The Theory of Permanent Revolution | by Michael Löwy
Whenever the inherent contradictions of the capitalist system have developed into an overt crisis, the unevenness of capitalist development has acted as a sort of pressure-release mechanism. In our neoliberal times, the unevenness can be seen on many levels – from the...


