South Africa’s child care catastrophe

(First published in City Press, South Africa, 22.04,03) Working families are always the prime sufferers when catastrophe strikes, be it war, famine, flood or often, callous disregard by powers that be. And it is children who carry the long-term consequences of trauma, dislocation and deprivation with many growing in to adulthood with their potential, physically, […]

Challenging the US Navy — in red underpants

How SA govt dodged an agreed pay deal

(First published on Fin24.com) There is considerable anger throughout the labour movement at the ruling by the Constitutional Court, backing lower court decisions, that the government had the right to renege on the third year of a three-year pay deal with the public sector. When all the facts are taken into account, it is an […]

Need for a new anti-privatisation fight

(First published on Fin24 and City Press, South Africa 18 & 20 February 2022) There was nothing new in the effective nod to privatisation in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address last week. But it — and the largely muted opposition to it — seemed perhaps to indicate the end of a 25-year […]

Co-ops & Zionism in the Clover strike

(First published in Fin24 and in City Press, South Africa) And so the old year rolls into the new, with the two-month-old Clover strike a prime labour focus.  And, unless a settlement is reached within the next week or so, the countrywide stoppage at the branded food and beverages group is likely to escalate — […]

Adapt, fade away or die?

(First published in  City Press, December 26, 2021) Adapt or die!  That is an expression that should be echoing — and taken very seriously — especially throughout the global labour movement at a time of massively growing joblessness and the ongoing decline of trade union membership. The expression is a brief paraphrase of the argument […]

Covid, confusion & the labour movement

(First published on Fin24 and in City Press, South Africa) The issue dealt with in this column should have been resolved months ago. But, given the the way much of the labour movement continues to react and the fact that even the tripartite National Economic Development of Labour Council is still debating vaccination and mandates, […]