Anglo's platinum operations are not "unprofitable". Rather, they are not "profitable enough". Plans to restructure will jeopardize the income of 14 000 workers and more than 100 000 dependents. AMCUs call to nationalize in response reflects the growing consensus on...
strike
Farm strikes: Radical changes needed.
Farm workers began the centennial year of the 1913 Land Act with a continuation of the most militant industrial action in the sector in decades. On January 9th, various Western Cape farming towns were turned into warzones as protestors demanding an increase to a...
Marikana mine massacre: why British lawyer has joined fight for justice
James Nichol explains his decision to volunteer to represent forgotten families of dead strikers When South Africa's apartheid police massacred 69 people in Sharpeville in 1960, the revulsion spread as far as northern England. James Nichol, then 15, took part in his...
The strike committees: Organising against all odds | by Amandla! correspondants
Whether the aftermath of Marikana will spell the downright end of the National Union of Mineworkers, the resentment against the traditional structures of bargaining and the union leadership is palpable in the platinum belt, sometimes bordering on murderous anger. The...
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...
AMCU at the Commission: “It was one big crime’ | by Jeanne Hefez
In its first months of hearings, the Farlam Commission has shown us clear evidence of a bungled police cover up of a massacre, the National Union of Mineworkers' (NUM) own attempt to hide its role, and an alarming level of complicity between state and capital. The...
Editorial : Polokwane to Mangaung: five wasted years: What prospects for the Left?
Polokwane has come and gone. Mangaung is upon us and the prospects for the left remains the same: quite dismal, at least inside the ANC, with its current power configurations. Talk of a 2nd transition or of a Lula moment conjure the illusion of a break with what's...
“The strength of Cosatu still lies in its members”
Interview with Eddie Webster, director of the Chris Hani Institute Edward Webster is Professor Emeritus in the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP), at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was recently appointed director of the Chris Hani Institite (CHI)...
Harvesting discontent
"I earn R800,00 per month and with this money I have to feed, clothe and fend for my family of eight. We barely survive; I cannot even afford to buy school shoes for the children. I cannot take it any longer"- Gertie Beukes, Ashton farmworker. "We produce the food...









