Browsing All posts tagged under »South Africa«

A Marikana miner speaks

March 13, 2013

2

A brief report by lawyer Jim Nichol that sums up the experience and feelings of many ordinary miners who survived the horrific tragedy at Marikana.

Women’s Day ideals: still a long way to go

March 10, 2013

0

When it began in 1910, IWD was rich with the promise of equality. Yet, even on the unequal pay front, little has been achieved: women, on average, work longer, harder and for less than male counterparts — if they are fortunate enough to have jobs.

Union move to save SA steel industry

March 3, 2013

0

South Africa's metalworkers' union invesment company is making moves to obtain a major stake in the local steel sector as part of a strategy to halt “continuing de-industrialisation” in the coal and iron ore rich country.

SA Bill of Rights and the 2014 election

February 22, 2013

2

The 2014 election campaign in South Africa has clearly begun and promises to be long and almost certainly very bitter and at the core of the ongoing debate will be the Constitution and, specifically, the Bill of Rights.

Groping towards the future

February 14, 2013

2

In stygian depths 4km and more below the surface of the earth gold continues to be harvested, but by fewer miners and with the aid of more — and increasingly efficient — mechanisation. The primary unemployment problem is not a question of skills or the lack of them: it is just that there are fewer and fewer jobs and more and more people wanting — and needing — work.

Inauspicious start to the ANC’s year

February 9, 2013

0

It was a not very auspicious start to 2013 for South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC). Not only did a host of unwelcome baggage from the past come tumbling into the new year, but other, new, difficulties also emerged before the year was even a month old.

Clarity about M&G’s Mbeki & survey allegations

February 8, 2013

0

Here is the response to Mail & Guardian allegations involving Moeletsi Mbeki, as chair of the non-profit think tank, Forum for Pubic Dialogue (FPD) and a survey of the attitudes of shop stewards in the ANC-aligned Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosau).

Early ANC election salvoes backfire

February 8, 2013

0

South Africa's governing ANC has loosed off the first major salvoes of the 2014 election campaign — and all of them have backfired, largely because of the confusing balancing act of trying to keep its trade union ally, Cosatu on board while pursuing policies the unions bitterly oppose.