The basic demand of May Day was for an eight-hour working day —eight for work, eight for leisure and eight for sleep. It is something we still have to achieve, not just in South Africa, but in many other countries.
Terry Bell
Analysis | 1 May 2014
Aubrey — “Dr Shock” — Levin, the South African army psychiatrist accused of torturing gays and dissidents in the apartheid military, has started a five-year jail term in Canada.
Terry Bell
News | 30 April 2014
The ongoing and increasingly bitter row within Cosatu boils down, basically, to a constitutional clash.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 29 April 2014
We are in the midst of all the usual fanfare, the pledges, promises, rows and contradictions that accompany any run-up to a major election. But the scheduled national poll on 7 May seems to be beset by more bickering, bitterness and fragmentation than normal — and this is a clear portent for the future.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 22 April 2014
Farm employer organisation AgriSA last week met with trade union representatives in an effort to strike a deal to allow unionisation on farms — and especially in the winelands of the Western Cape. “Most farmers still will not allow union representatives onto their properties,” says Federation of Unions (Fedusa) general secretary Dennis George.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 14 April 2014
A crunch point has this week been reached in the platinum sector. Stockpiles are all but exhausted and striking miners are starving. In normal circumstances this would be the time when compromise is reached, a matter of who blinks first.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 8 April 2014
This was written in September 2011 when Julius Malema was still riding high in the ANCYL. However, the arguments made are, I think vindicated by the subsequent emergence of the EFF. Anyone who thinks the EFF represents a Left alternative is badly — and dangerously — mistaken. I put it out again now because it appears that there are still some otherwise sensible comrades who are considering a vote for the EFF. WASP, for all its faults, is at least a Left bet.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 7 April 2014
In 1997 15 workers at the Sasol Secunda plant were burned to death in what was described at the time as a “catastrophic fire”. What caused the blaze that killed them, how did they die and could they have been saved? These were questions the next of kin and their union wanted to know.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 31 March 2014
The campaign now underway to encourage a protest against government by spoiling ballots has been left far too late, especially if the object is to build a coherent and mass, grassroots campaign to promote some kind of alternative.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 27 March 2014
In an unequal society where conflict between employers and employees is inevitable, the role of mediators who help to minimise the damage to protagonists and to society at large, is an honourable one. Such is the role of the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).
Terry Bell
Opinion | 24 March 2014
Unless bridges are built between competing sides, legacies of bitterness, hatred and fear, often distorted by prejudice and myth, can persist for decades, even generations. And when there are are fairly recent incidents, especially those involving bloodshed and human loss, feelings, particularly among those who identify as victims, are all the more acute.
Terry Bell
News | 17 March 2014
Four days after the bloodletting that has become known as the Marikana massacre, my Inside Labour column supported the call for a comprehensive and independent inquiry. And it noted, reflecting a widespread view within the labour movement: “The Lonmin tragedy is a wake-up call that South Africa will ignore at its peril.” Now, 19 months later and with the strike on the platinum belt having gone on for nearly two months, that warning seems even more appropriate. Below is an updated commentary that first appeared on the first anniversary of Marikana.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 10 March 2014
The rescue and subsequent arrest of zama-zama — (those prepared to) “have a go” — miners from an abandoned mine shaft near the East Rand city of Benoni made world headlines.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 3 March 2014
Capitalism is not dead. But it is severely ill and its chronic contagion is spreading through the economic and social fibres of the world.
Terry Bell
News | 3 March 2014
The curse of spin and speculation is well and truly upon us. It could hardly be otherwise, with a major strike on the platinum mines underway, a general election looming and the labour movement facing the biggest crisis in its history.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 18 February 2014
Vague ideas of transformation are all the rage these days. Take the latest bun fight in Davos, for example. The annual gathering of the grandly named World Economic Forum (WEF) that ended last weekend met under the heading: “The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business.”
Terry Bell
Opinion | 31 January 2014