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News & Views by Terry Bell
New SA labour fed: a new wheel or a retread?
April 9, 2017
Will the launch in two weeks of a new labour federation in South Africa herald a new era for local trade unionism or will it merely signal the arrival of just another federation in the existing mould? Time alone will tell.
Posted in: Inside Labour Column
Showing up the farce of SA democracy
April 4, 2017
South Africa’s constitutional democracy has, over the past week been shown up for the farce that it is. And the call now must be for a system that will extend democracy and grant real power to the people “on the ground”,
Posted in: Commentary
A tweet too far on Singapore
March 23, 2017
Helen Zille, former leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance and premier of South Africa's Western Cape province, tweets that we should look for inspiration to Singapore. Yet this is an authoritarian city state that does not tolerate opposition.
Posted in: Commentary
A usurped International Women’s Day
March 8, 2017
It’s the 106th International Women’s Day (IWD) today. And its original goal has been all but usurped by the very elites that IWD was established to oppose.
Posted in: Commentary
A Budget by any other name would smell the same
February 23, 2017
THE more things change, the more they stay the same. This applies not only to the latest South African Budget, but to almost all such economic policy statements as finance ministers continually repeat variations on the same failed remedies, apparently in the hope of different outcomes.
Posted in: Commentary
Feb 14: It’s Ester Howland’s Day
February 15, 2017
Yesterday, February 14, should not have been in celebration of St Valentine and monogamous, romantic love. It's a day that belongs to Ester Howland and to the celebration entrepreneurship. The mythial Valentine was introduced as a party pooper.
Posted in: Commentary
Political interference and the unions
February 11, 2017
The attempt by labour minister Mildred Oliphant — including a couple of lengthy and costly court battles — to interfere in trade union administration was slapped down hard on January 26. The labour appeal court ruled that her instruction to the registrar of labour relations to withdraw action against a defaulting Cosatu union and her […]
Posted in: Inside Labour Column
Terry Bell Writes 
How ‘the people’ can capture the state
April 9, 2017
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Direct democracy, a system where the citizens as a whole have control over their lives and welfare is not only desirable, it is possible, given the very technology that is now destroying jobs. But it requires education and organisation.