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...
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The private sector is corrupt too!
Dear Amandla! When one reads through any of our nation's major newspapers one is bombarded with endless stories of corruption in government, the civil service and of those in power pillaging state resources. But these stories are overwhelmingly confined to...
Houses for all! Now! | by Martin Legassick
Women and children have been forced to endure the Cape's lashing winter winds and rain sleeping in the open in the Marikana area of Philippi. This is the result of illegal actions by the Democratic-Alliance-sponsored Anti Land Invasion Unit (ALIU), demolishing their...
South Africa’s New Apartheid | by Sabine Cessou
A group of building workers relaxed on the pavement in central Cape Town, enjoying their lunch break. Every minute was precious; nobody was in a hurry to get back to work. "They pay us peanuts," said a bricklayer with a gold tooth. On the equivalent of $1,470 a month,...
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...
Echoes of the Past:Marikana, Cheap Labour and the 1946 Miners Strike
Chris Webb On August 4, 1946 over one thousand miners assembled in Market Square in Johannesburg, South Africa. No hall in the town was big enough to hold them, and no one would have rented one to them anyway. The miners were members of the African Mine Worker's...
South Africa’s Dangerously Unsafe Financial Intercourse | by Patrick Bond
Just before last weekend’s meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) board in Washington, South Africa's finance minister dropped us an obscure news item: “Gordhan concerned about rand volatility”(Reuters, April 16). Hidden away in the business...
South African economy still vulnerable, volatile and violent to poor and working people | by Patrick Bond
A slow dawn of realisation is setting in among sensible elites: that the world economy isn’t going to recover according to any prior experience, that financial markets are rigged to transfer from the 99% to the 1%, and that ecological barriers are emerging fast on the...



