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News & Views by Terry Bell
Browsing All posts tagged under »elections«
ANC faces a turbulent post-election period
The government as employer, together with the governing ANC, could be sailing into some turbulent post-election waters. A series of meetings, some of which started this week, will determine quite how turbulent, but the prospects for smooth sailing look remote. On May 26 representatives of the 14 unions in the public service were in Cape […]
A critical — largely ignored — wage battle looms
April 22, 2011
South Africa's annual battle over wages and conditions has this year been all but obscured by reports of political infighting focussed largely on the May 18 local government elections. Troubling news from Swaziland, Libya and Côte d’Ivoire has also tended to push this yearly tussle between bosses and unions into the background. Yet the 2011 wage round is arguably more critical than any in recent years — and will almost certainly have a direct bearing on the outcome of the May 18 poll.
Resistance grows as the political edges fray
April 3, 2011
Trade unions around the world are being forced to fight back as a consequence of what many bankers claim is the “gradual recovery” of the word’s “fragile economy”. But, as the unions tend to point out, such improvements are paid for largely by the unemployed and working poor. “We are paying for their crisis,” is a common labour movement cry.
Playing the race card as polls loom
March 18, 2011
(First published 11 March, 2011) Whenever an election looms, the rumour mills tend to grind away, often fuelled by ill-considered comments by politicians. It’s the same the world over, compounded by media manipulation, distortions of fact and outright falsification being all too often the order of the days leading up to polling time. But there […]
Sensational slogans and reformist reality
March 13, 2011
(First published February 25, 2011) Never judge a book by its cover. Nor, for that matter, the prospect of revolution by the labels given to mass protest, the radical tone of slogans or the harshness of repression. In a South African context, it also means not jumping to the conclusion that our liberal parliamentary democracy […]
Terry Bell Writes 
May 29, 2011
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