The timing, duration and intensity of the long strike on the platinum belt were fuelled by a familiar South African problem: persistent and very high inequality.
Gilad Isaacs
Opinion | 1 July 2014
Breathing air that does not damage health is one of the most important constitutional rights. But some municipalities on the polluted Mpumalanga Highveld are battling to enforce the Air Quality Act, writes Robyn Hugo.
Robyn Hugo
Opinion | 1 July 2014
Gilad Isaacs underestimates the scale of AMCU's victory. His analysis offers an indicator of winner/loser based on contrasting the final settlement with the initial demand and initial offer. But this is arbitrary.
Peter Alexander
Opinion | 30 June 2014
The South African economy is facing a rocky period. But don’t blame the platinum strike or the union or workers involved. That labour dispute was a symptom, not the cause, of problems that had developed outside of the control of the workers.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 30 June 2014
After the historic five-month long platinum strike, mineworkers and corporate executives are retreating to their tin shacks and BMWs respectively. The country is left wondering: who won?
What the increases mean for the lives of the workers and the fortunes of the platinum producers is difficult to quantify. However, it is possible to compare the implications – for workers and company costs – of the various offers, demands and the final settlement.
Gilad Isaacs
Analysis | 26 June 2014
Che Guevara famously said that: "At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that a true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." Black Consciousness itself is guided by the feelings of love; it is a philosophy of love. This was central to some of the philosophy on which the movement was founded such as the work of people like James Cone and Paulo Freire.
Ayanda Kota
Opinion | 23 June 2014
The platinum strike has correctly been categorised as a national crisis, but it is only one aspect of a much more severe crisis that confronts the country. This was highlighted on Tuesday by President Jacob Zuma in his State of the Nation (SoNA) address in which he stressed the economy.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 23 June 2014
Umthombo Youth Development Foundation (UYDF) is a non-profit organisation with a simple mission: address the shortage of qualified healthcare staff in rural hospitals. Why? To improve healthcare delivery to these underserved communities.
Jen Strydom
Opinion | 18 June 2014
In the mining villages of Ga-Pila where Anglo Platinum continues to profit from land grabbed from the traditional communities just west of Mokopane, the appointment of the new Minister of Mineral Resources, Advocate Ngoako Ramathlodi, has been met with a sense of betrayal.
Christopher Rutledge
Opinion | 16 June 2014
Nearly 40 years ago on 16 June 1976, there was a youth uprising in Soweto. This was evoked by the learners at the time who did not want to be taught in Afrikaans. Their struggle was against an inferior education system that was setting them up for failure.
Sizwe Zubenathi Mapapu
Opinion | 16 June 2014
As a young African and as a member of youth organisation Inkululeko in Mind, I hold 16 June as a day of honour for our heroes who gave their lives so that our generation would have better education. We have to defend and advance their legacy and pass it to generations to come.
Monde Kula
Opinion | 16 June 2014
How serious is state surveillance of telephone calls in South Africa? The problem is we don't know, writes Right2Know's Murray Hunter.
Murray Hunter
Analysis | 13 June 2014
Gwede Mantashe, former chairman of the SA Communist Party, former general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and now the powerful secretary-general of the governing ANC, sounded furious this week. In what must qualify as the most ironic case of “we’ve heard all that before”, he blamed the platinum belt strike and the consequent crisis on “white foreigners”.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 13 June 2014
The house demolitions and evictions that took place in Strand last week highlighted the class and race fractures that run through our country.
Nathan Geffen
Opinion | 12 June 2014
The recent allegations of financial impropriety in the upper ranks of the SA Municipal Workers’ Union are only the latest in a string of similar scandals over the years. And it is little wonder that these have erupted, for many trade unions have transformed themselves into bureaucratic organisations with business links.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 11 June 2014
Why are illegal abortions so widely advertised and used in South Africa? Ruth Atkinson has been investigating. She shares some of her insights here.
Ruth Atkinson
Analysis | 10 June 2014