At the best of times, grassroots democracy, without sound communications infrastructure and the distribution of accurate information, can be a messy business. Add to this, dollops of rumour, some perceptions bordering on paranoia, various interest groups promoting different agendas, a history of distrust and memories of recent bloodshed and you have Marikana and much of the platinum belt today.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 20 May 2013
The exile experience of women in the liberation movements — a largely neglected aspect of recent South African history — will feature this year at the Franschhoek Literary Festival in a discussion involving the octogenarian feminist writer, Lauretta Ngcobo.
Terry Bell
News | 16 May 2013
That private club of super-rich men, the World Economic Forum (WEF), was back in town this week. In Cape Town to be exact, to persuade, buy up and bully politicians and opinion makers to adopt policies that many trade unionists say are based on the myth that there is no alternative to the present crisis-ridden economic system.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 15 May 2013
May Day last week should have been a time for reflection, not celebration; reflection about the potentially dire situation the labour movement now finds itself in. It is a situation brought about by tensions largely resulting from the ongoing global economic crisis that has impacted on every aspect of society. To help with this reflection, Business Report is this week making available copies of my book, Right to Fight, to the first five correct answers drawn from responses to the question below.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 8 May 2013
Politics and personal ambition compounded by some sloppy journalism have clouded and confused the issues surrounding the bitter internecine feud within Cosatu and the governing ANC-led alliance. This has also confused the legitimate complaints that teachers have about the state of education in South Africa and the way the system is being administered.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 30 April 2013
From a trade union viewpoint, Margaret Thatcher will never be mourned. But her impact on global politics and economics cannot be denied. She rode the crest of a wave of liberal economic policies that swamped the consensual balance of the post World War Two years. In the process, she highlighted as few have done before or since, the inherently hostile relationship between labour and capital.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 12 April 2013
The causes of the poor and the dispossessed continue to be manipulated by politicians
and unscrupulous individuals bent on accumulating power, personal wealth or both.
As a result, there is much cynical use and distortion of the evidence and of statements
emanating from painful occurrences such as the deaths at Marikana or the conflict in
the Boland winelands.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 27 March 2013
South Africa’s annual wage bargaining — some say, strike — season has begun. In a
series of conferences this week, the various sides got together to decide on their
strategies and to plan the tactics they intend to follow as the hard talking gets
underway.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 20 March 2013
It was International Women’s Day (IWD) on Friday. And it seemed an appropriate
time for a reminder about the labour movement origins of the day and of its noble
aims and egalitarian promise. This because several recent studies reveal that the
female half of humanity is once again bearing the brunt of the global economic crisis.
After all, when it began in 1910, IWD was rich with the promise of equality.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 13 March 2013
In stygian depths 4km and more below the surface of the earth gold continues to be
harvested, but by fewer miners and with the aid of more—and increasingly efficient—mechanisation.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 20 February 2013
The government has loosed off the first major salvoes of the 2014 election campaign
— and all of them have backfired. That is one labour movement view of three
official announcements over the past ten days.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 13 February 2013
Yesterday, exactly 40 years ago, the modern trade union movement arrived on the
South African scene. Its birth was heralded by a wave of strikes in Durban that had
gestated over 22 days from the time 2,000 workers at Coronation Brick and Tile
downed tools.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 5 February 2013
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille is correct in claiming that there is
political interference in the strikes and recurrent violence in the Boland. And the
DA is as responsible as any other political grouping for being involved in — or
“interfering” — in the ongoing upheaval.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 23 January 2013
South Africa has continued to fail the children of the poor and is once again reaping
the results of that failure. Nowhere is this more evident than in the recurrent violent
eruptions in the fruit and wine farm regions of the Western Cape.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 16 January 2013
The promises and the policies, the personalities elected, even the potential political
punch-ups at Mangaung are basically irrelevant.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 19 December 2012
The Bill of Rights is rightly hailed throughout the labour movement and beyond as
perhaps the finest exposition of the desire of the bulk of humanity for a world that
guarantees the maximum level of dignity, equality and freedom for all.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 12 December 2012