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News & Views by Terry Bell
Browsing All posts tagged under »politics«
The democratic centralist curse
Democratic centralism is one of the most abused concepts within the South African political and labour arena. It has come to the fore again in debates around the strike protesting a proposed minimum wage and amendments to the labour laws. Hopefully, such debate will lead to the democratic reforms needed in much of the labour movement.
SA govt’s public sector pay gamble
April 16, 2018
The SA government — the biggest employer in the land — has effectively reneged on its own proposals for a settlement with more than 1 million of its employees, gambling that ANC aligned unions will accept the new, austerity measures. This has caused growing anger at rank and file level and may mean the government has overplayed its hand.
The YES gambit for 2019 SA elections
April 1, 2018
The Youth Employment Scheme (YES) announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa is not unique. Sucvh schemes have been tried — and have failed — before. In fact, YES may add more fuel to the ticking time bomb of dissatisfaction among the army of unemployed youth.
The “hymn of labour” that still survives
March 17, 2018
The Internationale, that labour hymn of protest and call to action has survived being appropriated by that grotesque parody of socialism in the former Soviet Union. It should be celebrated on Sunday, March 18, the anniversary of the start of the 1871 Paris Commune that provided the inspiration for it.
Which women best epitomise IWD?
March 11, 2018
As was noted at the International Women's Day founding conference in Copenhagen in 1910: “It is a matter of indifference who is the ‘master’, a man or a woman.” Is it women who support this point of view who best represent the ideals that should be striven for?
When will the time bomb cease to tick?
March 2, 2018
What the latest Budget has done is, on the one hand, to placate the money lenders and the business elite while, on the other, further alienating and angering the majority of South Africans. The time bomb is continuing to tick. But for how much longer before an explosion occurs?
Pensions: a trigger for worker action
February 17, 2018
Pensions are the deferred wages of workers and whenever authorities, public or private, move against these funds that workers know are rightly theirs, expect a fight, even from sectors not usually regarded as militant. A classic case should erupt in Britain next Thursday when 61 universities start a “rolling” 14-day strike.
Terry Bell Writes 
April 30, 2018
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