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News & Views by Terry Bell
Browsing Archives of Author »Terry Bell«
Campus chaos: history repeats itself
The current crisis on South African university campuses is, in many ways, a repeat of the 1998 protests, the main difference being the existence and widespread use now of social media and mobile telephony programs such as Whatsapp.
Criminalising desperate mine workers
September 25, 2016
Driven by poverty to artisanal mining, enterprising workers are criminalised for being entrepreneurial. At the same time, the SA government, perhaps with good intentions, seems likely to create a disaster with changes to compensation coverage for miners.
The productivity & growth illusion
September 18, 2016
Politicans, economists and several labour leaders keep telling us that we need more growth and greater productivity in order to claw our way out of the present economic crisis. But this is an illusion as we face the job-loss reality of the 4th industrial revolution.
State & union ‘capture’ in South Africa
September 10, 2016
It is high time South Africa's Cosatu unions learned the lessons of their democratic origins so that they do not fall prey to the statist, “conveyor belt,” alternative proposed by the likes to the World Federation of Trade Unions whose congress is being hosted in Durban by four Cosatu unions while Cosatu remains affiliated to the International Trade Union Confederation.
The living legacy of ‘Mama Ray’
September 2, 2016
The decision of South Africa's Food & Allied Workers' Union to leave the Cosatu federation and the ANC-led alliance seems to indicate that the legacy of principled unity preached by "Mama Ray" Alexander Simons and her cohort continues to survive.
A journalistic travesty by Independent Media
August 25, 2016
A proclaimed expose about a “dirty tricks campaign” against Independent News Media South Africa and its putative owner, Iqbal Survé, published this week, was a journalistic travesty. It amounted to sloppy and racist propaganda.
Marikana, mining and idustrial peace
August 21, 2016
The circumstances surrounding the deaths at Marikana four years ago should provide a bloody and tragic lesson about the reality of South Africa’s mineral wealth. Marikana should become a reminder of a brutal industrial history and a symbol for the struggle to improve the lives of workers, everywhere.
Women’s Day and celebrations of patronage
August 12, 2016
In South Africa we should stop dressing up celebrations of patronage — and worse — as examples of gender equality. This fact was highlighted in a dramatic way by a demonstration at the announcement of the recent local government election results.
Terry Bell Writes 
October 3, 2016
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