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News & Views by Terry Bell
Browsing All Posts filed under »Inside Labour Column«
Hope amid the horror of joblessness and exploitation
For all its contradictions the annual Spring Queen pageant, staged by workers in the badly battered Cape Town garment industry, retains a social bite; it is a Cinderella moment that exopresses the hope of a better fife for all — and perhaps the determination to see change happen.
Ripping good reasons for an independent media
July 13, 2012
An free and unfettered media provides the only antidote to propaganda serving narrow political and corporate agendas. This issue has become highly pertinent as the Irish-owned Independent News Media group in South Africa comes up for sale.
Cry the Beloved Country — again
July 6, 2012
In an incredible irony, copies of Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country were among the thousands of books shredded and dumped in what can only be described as an orgy of destruction in Limpopo. Yet it was only the sheer scale of the destruction that surprised members of the Cosatu-affiliated SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu).
Rewriting history and mangling facts
June 29, 2012
Historical distortion and emotive rhetoric characterised the ANC policy conference that ended this week. In fact, it could be argued that the new transition or phase is along the lines advocated by the labour movement 16 years ago in the Social Equity and Job Creation document.
SA Inc and the search for a real alternative
June 21, 2012
South Africa Inc is a “fronting” exercise in which the people of the country are the hapless stooges giving credibility to a governing elite. That is one of the reactions within the labour movement following the announcement of the government’s $2 billion pledge to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Missed chance as our Rome starts to burn
June 15, 2012
When the governor of any central bank starts a speech by acknowledging that the global economic crisis is not only continuing, but is getting worse, every trade unionist should sit up and take notice. That Numsa delegates did not when SA Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus spoke at their congress might be described as the Nero syndrome, after the Roman emperor who supposedly fiddled while his city burned about him.
Of nationalisation, land grabs & vanguards
June 8, 2012
Nationalisation and the expropriation of land without compensation are back on the South African political agenda. However, these demands seem to entail a one-sided interpretation of the contradictory clauses in the Freedom Charter and a misreading of the relevant section in the Constitution.
Spearing labour history
June 1, 2012
The charade surrounding the satrical The Spear painting swamped an importnt anniversary in South African labour history, the centenary of Alexandra twonship, site of perhaps the only "liberated zone" at the height of apartheid repression and example of trade union and community collaboration.
Terry Bell Writes 
July 19, 2012
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