Labour

How heritage got roasted

Wednesday was a public holiday: Heritage Day. And carnivore commercialism seems largely to have claimed it. For many — if not most — South Africans who could afford it, this was a day to indulge in and enjoy chisa nyama, the ubiquitous braai.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 29 September 2014

When rights clash with tradition

Is South Africa on the brink of a clash between the egalitarian concepts embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the demands to retain undemocratic, feudal and colonial hangovers of the past? If so, it may be Swaziland that will provide the catalyst.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 22 September 2014

People with HIV should be able to fight for their country

There is no reason people with HIV shouldn't be soldiers, says Tim Flack, who served in the navy and is the Western Cape representative for the South African National Defence Force Union.

Tim Flack

Opinion | 16 September 2014

Khayelitsha cleaners fed up with not getting paid on time

Every month since January, Khayelitsha’s refuse collectors and street cleaners in QA and PJS Section go in large groups to camp outside the supervisor’s office so they can get what is due to them.

Mary-Anne Gontsana

News | 15 September 2014

Political abuse & arrogant dogma

Deputy defence minister Kebby Maphatsoe this week withdrew his claim that public protector Thuli Madonsela was a “CIA spy” and apologised for the statement. But the issue continues to reverberate throughout the body politic.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 15 September 2014

Salt River “improvement” deprives car guards of income

Car guards outside the Old Biscuit Mill have been left without an income after the newly operational Salt River Business Improvement District (SRBID) told them to leave.

Daneel Knoetze

News | 12 September 2014

Constitutional misunderstandings

Our justly praised Constitution and the institutions it created have taken something of a verbal battering over the past week and more — and often for the wrong reasons. In the process, the office of the public protector has become something of a surrogate battleground for the opposing factions in Cosatu.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 8 September 2014

Montagu farm tenant appeals eviction

Andries Joostenberg, the retired farmworker who was evicted along with his family from a farmhouse in which they had lived for 26 years, has applied for urgent leave to appeal the court order which legalised the eviction. Papers were filed by family lawyer Johan van der Merwe in the Land Claims Court (LCC) on Wednesday.

Daneel Knoetze

News | 5 September 2014

Business shoots itself in the wages foot

The opening salvoes have again been fired in another round in the war about a national minimum wage. And on both sides there are accusations of the selective choice of research to bolster arguments.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 1 September 2014

The week in activism

This week in political activism we look at calls for help from Grahamstown, the plight of coal communities, a symposium on gender equality, and documenting the struggles of four informal settlements in South Africa.

Thembela Ntongana

News | 27 August 2014

Welcoming a slight improvement for vulnerable workers

In an unequal society, and especially one suffering an economic crisis, the sellers of labour will always be disadvantaged. That is the simple reality of the system in which we live.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 25 August 2014

Sex work, crime & the working class

All who sell their labour in order to survive are workers. And all workers are, to one or other degree, exploited in that they are paid less than the final value of the work they do. Within a profit-driven system it could hardly be otherwise.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 18 August 2014

Marikana massacre remembered in city centre

About 50 members of several social movements marched on Parliament and the Cape Town police station today in memory of the 34 miners killed by police at Marikana two years ago.

Daneel Knoetze

News | 15 August 2014

Terry Bell unfairly treated, says Council

Journalist and author Terry Bell was treated "shabbily" by Independent Newspapers' Business Report, which summarily dropped his weekly column earlier this year, the Statutory Council for the Printing, Newspaper and Packaging Industries has found.

GroundUp staff

News | 13 August 2014

Women who gave us a charter for all

“A scab’s charter.” This was one published description of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) when it came into being 19 years ago. Because, although the bulk of the Act was warmly accepted by the labour movement, it contained a clause that seemed to undermine its basic precept.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 12 August 2014

The uneven scales of justice

“A scab’s charter.” This was one published description of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) when it came into being 19 years ago. Because, although the bulk of the Act was warmly accepted by the labour movement, it contained a clause that seemed to undermine its basic precept.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 5 August 2014