The Working Class Summit bounces back LAST MONTH, 600 ACTIVISTS packed into a Johannesburg hall for the first meeting in several years of the Working Class Summit. It was a welcome sight for the many sore eyes on the South African Left. The WCS’s main convener is the...
unions
Amazon wages war against unions
Amazon wages war against unions Alex Press | Amandla 76 | June/July 2021 When workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, decided to unionise, the trillion-dollar company, marshalled by the world’s richest man, waged a war against them. The warehouse - Amazon...
Reclaiming Our Unions: The Crisis in SAMWU and the Continuing Fight for Democracy from Below | Amandla! Correspondent
As this issue of Amandla! goes to press, we read disturbing accounts of South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) shop stewards being prevented by private security personnel from entering the union's Johannesburg headquarters, and being physically attacked with...
Putting the rights of cleaners at the centre of the struggle for transformation of universities: The case of UJ cleaners
The debate on transformation of universities tends to focus on changes in colour and gender, as well as access to these institutions. These are vitally important questions, because they seek to cure the ills of colonialism and apartheid in university education. On the...
Cosatu
Vavi is back. after nine months of suspension, a successful lawsuit set the way for Vavi's return to Cosatu. This confirms Numsa's contention that the original suspension of Vavi violated Cosatu's constitution, indicating that Cosatu president S'dumo Dlaminiand his...
A new Cosatu a new future?
The probable expulsion of Numsa from Cosatu marks the beginning of a profound re-organisation and possible renewal of the workers' movement. The most likely outcome will be the emergence of a new federation organised around Numsa, along with the eight other unions...
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...


