Subscribe:
RSS feed
News & Views by Terry Bell
The tech conundrum for labour
(First published on Fin24 & in City Press, South Africa) Shoprite, South Africa’s largest food retailer and a major employer, is on course to launch fully automated supermarket checkouts. And that announcement last week should have sent shivers of apprehension throughout the working class and trade union movement, especially coming in the same week that […]
Posted in: Uncategorized
Job or jab? It really is as simple as that
August 22, 2021
(First published on the Fin24 website and in City Press) No Covid-19 vaccination equals no job. Nor any welcome in any public gathering. That — allowing for a tiny minority of individual exceptions for legitimate medical reasons — would not only be legal, it would be the morally correct way forward. And trade unions in […]
Posted in: Uncategorized
A diet of bananas on the cusp of history
August 22, 2021
Reflections of a Wayward Boy (Available on Daily the Maverick site) Fascinating as the island of Fernando Po (now Bioko) was, with its sea-breached volcanic crater harbour, loomed over by the lushly green decked bulk of the Pico Basilé (formerly Pico de Santa Isabel) mountain, its history and its people, Barbara and I had no […]
Posted in: Uncategorized
Covid-19 vaccination: ethical & legal
August 16, 2021
A diplomatic and scientifically based educational approach by trade unions that highlights health and safety legislation, along with regulations gazetted by the government in June should finally put paid to the claim by anti-vaccination campaigners that workers may refuse, with impunity, to be vaccinated., For the most part, this claim is based on a misrepresentation […]
Posted in: Uncategorized
Forgotten heroes of Women’s Day
August 16, 2021
To promote their own narrow interests, political and commercial organisations frequently hijack national and international high days and holidays, in the process creating myths and distorting history. Women’s Day, both national and international, are classic examples. …………………………………… March 8 — International Women’s Day (IWD) — came and went, with the history and purpose of the […]
Posted in: Uncategorized
Dangers of returning to a ‘normal’ SA
July 25, 2021
(First published on Fin24) The events of recent weeks have once again highlighted the gross inequalities and the legacy of apartheid geography that remain South African realities. They also revealed that the poison of ethnic nationalism continues to course through parts of the body politic. As a resut, there are many lessons to be learned, […]
Posted in: Uncategorized
Uphill fight to vaccinate
July 16, 2021
(First published on Fin24 and in City Press, South Africa) Where are the unions as South Africa limps through yet another ill-considered jobs slaughter of a lockdown? Especially as thousands of teachers and educational support staff continue to refuse the Covid-19 vaccine.It’s a good question to ask, when many — if not most — of […]
Posted in: Uncategorized
Seeking justice & truth in SA’s tortured past
July 8, 2021
In the wake of renewed efforts — including a court decision — to reopen, investigate and prosecute apartheid era crimes, a number of elderly people in powerful — or once powerful — positions must be feeling more than a shiver of apprehension. And that applies on both sides of the former apartheid struggle divide. […]
Posted in: Uncategorized
Terry Bell Writes 
September 7, 2021
0