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News & Views by Terry Bell
The real basis of the global economic crisis (11.11.2009)
Analysing the crisis and arguing that it may amount to a choice between planetary survival or annihilation.
Posted in: Archive - 2009
South Africa’s educational confusion over evolution (11.11.2009)
October 2, 2010
Confusion exists in South African schools where blind. creationist belief is equated with evidence-based science.
Posted in: Archive - 2009
WHY PROBLEMS LIE WITH THE POLICIES (08.08.2008)
October 2, 2010
To obtain answers that may be correct and useful, it is first necessary to ask the right questions. Yet every time there is a a strike, particularly at the national level, the same questions are asked of the same business people, economists and politicians and the same trite answers are trotted out. The main query […]
Posted in: Archive - 2008
THE TROUBLE WITH WEARING TWO HATS (01.08.2008)
October 2, 2010
A sad chapter in labour movement history ended this week with the formal dismissal of Willie Madisha as president of the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu). And while there has been much concentration of the machinations, claims and counter claims surrounding his case these are merely symptoms of a fundamental contradiction at the heart of […]
Posted in: Archive - 2008
WHY A R17M WIN COULD BE A PYRRHIC VICTORY (25.07.2008)
October 2, 2010
This week’s R17 million award against a KwaZulu-Natal textile company for not paying wage rates agreed by the bargaining council highlights yet again a fundamental, obvious and yet frequently unrecognised reality: the conflict between societal demands, government policies and business principle. It has been said often enough, in this column and elsewhere, that the only […]
Posted in: Archive - 2008
IS ANOTHER ANTI-POOR INFLATION MASSAGE LOOMING? (18.07.2008)
October 2, 2010
Forget all the arguments that have raged this week about weightings and rebasing, about dangerously high pay rises and the technical details of recalculating inflation. So far as the labour movement is concerned, there is only one simple fact to bear in mind: the cost of surviving, let alone living, especially for the working poor, […]
Posted in: Archive - 2008
WHY PROTEST TACTICS NEED STRATEGIC GOALS (11.07.2008)
October 2, 2010
According to an old English rhyme, the famous Duke of York marched ten thousand men to the top of a hill — and marched them down again. This has come the represent an exercise in futility, the amassing of collective strength to attain a goal to no ultimate purpose. What it has all too often […]
Posted in: Archive - 2008
UNION ROLE — AND SURVIVAL — IN ZIMBABWE (04.07.2008)
October 2, 2010
“They seem to have won. They claim to have won, but still the beatings continue.” That was the bitter reaction yesterday of a Zimbabwean trade unionist in Harare. He and several of his fellows also bewailed the fact that the contribution and suffering of the labour movement tends to be ignored. They argued, with justification, […]
Posted in: Archive - 2008
Terry Bell Writes 
October 2, 2010
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