Hundreds of farmworkers in the De Doorns area have been fired after the end of the farmworkers strike in the area on 22 January. The strike had been called off by COSATU the week before, but the seemingly dominant union in the area, the Bawsi Agriculture Workers Union of South Africa (Bawusa), suspended the strike days later. Clashes between police and protesters resulted in at least one death, many injuries and 181 arrests of striking farmworkers.
Ben Fogel
Opinion | 30 January 2013
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 minimum R150 per day for farm workers, blockaded highways and set vineyards alight with police using rubber bullets and tear gas.
Niall Reddy
News | 24 January 2013
GroundUp journalist Mihle Pike received a call this morning that employees at Cash Paymaster Services had gone on strike. She went to see what was going on. Here is her account.
Mihle Pike
News | 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
With one man confirmed dead in De Doorns as well as further allegations of police brutality and coercion on the one hand and striker intimidation on the other, the ongoing farm worker protests continue in the Western Cape wine and fruit-growing region.
Kate Stegeman
News | 16 January 2013
Employees of Cash Paymasters Services (CPS) are fed up with their working conditions. The company handles the reissuing of the new social grant cards for the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA).
Mihle Pike
News | 16 January 2013
With one man confirmed dead in De Doorns as well as further allegations of police brutality and coercion on the one hand and striker intimidation on the other, the ongoing farm worker protests continue in the Western Cape wine and fruit-growing region.
Kate Stegeman
News | 16 January 2013
Tensions between the De Doorns community and the police flared into open confrontation, as day one of the now thrice resumed strike turned into a running battle between striking workers and the police.
Ben Fogel
News | 10 January 2013
GroundUp spoke to Sipho Mfengwana, owner of Faku Tasty Chicken in Khayelitsha.
Mihle Pike
News | 12 December 2012
Kayla Kim Meiring is the founder of Fro, a company that started off selling vintage clothing but now sells Meiring's own homespun popular clothes.
Margo Fortune and Nokubonga Yawa
News | 5 December 2012
The Commercial Stevedoring Agricultural & Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU) is preparing for a general strike from 4 December.
Tessa Gooding
Brief | 28 November 2012
Sizwe Nzima is just 21 years old but he has already co-founded a business called Iyeza Express that delivers chronic medicines by bike to patients who are unable to stand in long queues at clinic pharmacies.
Mihle Pike
News | 21 November 2012
An argument between a farmer and two employees has spiralled out of control. The story shows the kinds of problems fuelling the current farm tensions in the Western Cape.
Tessa Gooding and Margo Fortune
News | 21 November 2012
Seventy employees at Leeuwenkuil Farm refused to work for five days until five of their colleagues were reinstated, according to the Commerical Stevedoring Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU).
Tessa Gooding
News | 21 November 2012
Township is a non-profit organisation that is creating jobs and providing opportunities for people living in Cape Town’s townships.
Janine Fortuin
News | 21 November 2012
Its fine wines are known around the world and the City Sightseeing bus takes regular journeys through its beautiful grounds beneath Table Mountain. But the community who live and work at Groot Constantia estate say that the charitable trust that owns the farm pays female vineyard workers less than their male counterparts. They also accuse management of reducing their benefits.
Tessa Gooding
News | 14 November 2012