Misunderstanding and confusion about the platinum sector pay issue persists. And much of the media is to blame for repeating, without analysis, the public relations spin of the mining companies.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 2 June 2014
North West province mineworkers striking for better salaries are lobbying with the power of film to gain support for their cause countrywide.
Yazeed Kamaldien
News | 29 May 2014
Already hit by drought, small farmers in the Upington area will now have to pay fees to graze their animals on common land.
Selby Nomnganga
News | 29 May 2014
For all the special pleading by the major teachers’ union, Sadtu and the assertions by basic education minister Angie Motshekga that all is well, our schooling system is in crisis.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 26 May 2014
Tracey Davies explains how the Batlhabine community fought back against a mining company that ignored the law. She also argues that the Department of Mineral Resources should have done more to help.
Tracey Davies
Opinion | 20 May 2014
Nursing unions and the media noted last week that Monday was a day dedicated to nurses, to those who treat the sick and the ailing. And, as they did so, they continued to perpetuate a myth.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 19 May 2014
The voting is over, the counting complete — and there have been no major surprises. But for many it will be recriminations rather than celebrations that will follow what will almost certainly be regarded as a watershed election, signalling changes to come.
Terry Bell
News | 12 May 2014
Programming returned to normal at Khayelitsha’s Radio Zibonele Community Station on Sunday following two days of disruptions due to a strike by the majority of the station's staff.
Johnnie Isaac
News | 5 May 2014
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
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
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
About 1,000 to 1,500 members of the National Education Health and Allied Workers' Union marched through town on 27 March to the offices of the Western Cape government.
GroundUp Staff
Brief | 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