“We would like the government to legislate a national minimum wage of R4,500 so that the private sector cannot get away with murder,” Langa resident Fezile Olifant told a parliamentary hearing on the national minimum wage in Gugulethu at the weekend.
Katy Scott
News | 11 November 2014
Four activists and farm workers, arrested two years ago while marching in the Koo valley outside Montagu, have been acquitted.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 10 November 2014
During the hearings of the Marikana Commission, Lonmin executives said the company had not been able to afford to keep its 2006 promise to build 5,500 new houses for workers. Yet a year later, in 2007, the International Finance Corporation had made finance of US$150 million available to Lonmin - part of it for a "large-scale community development programme".
Alide Dasnois
News | 7 November 2014
Lonmin has broken its promises to build housing for employees, say the Marikana Commission's evidence leaders.
Alide Dasnois
News | 5 November 2014
Police evidence to the Marikana Commission was "constructed" at a meeting in Potchefstroom soon after the massacre of 34 miners in 2012, according to the commission’s evidence leaders.
Alide Dasnois
News | 5 November 2014
Riah Phiyega is not fit to hold the office of National Commissioner of Police, say the Marikana Commission’s evidence leaders.
Alide Dasnois
News | 5 November 2014
Nombulelo Mtibe eeks out a living selling smileys. And no, a smiley is not an emoticon on your phone!
Pharie Sefali
News | 3 November 2014
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I tender this classic apology on behalf of many of my fellow journalists who have recently misled the public about the situation regarding the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) and the Cosatu federation.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 3 November 2014
Domestic workers are calling for the minimum wage to be set at R2,500 a month when the Department of Labour announces the annual minimum wage increase in a few week’s time.
Thembela Ntongana and Zintle Swana
News | 30 October 2014
A credibility crisis in South Africa’s independent media is unfolding this week, writes Patrick Bond.
Patrick Bond
Analysis | 28 October 2014
Bambanani is an organisation that provides community safety. It operates as a public works programme under the auspices of the Department of Community and Safety. But some of their employees --or volunteers, depending on your perspective-- are frustrated with the stipends they receive.
Thembela Ntongana
News | 27 October 2014
The strike bound South African Post Office (Sapo) has been badly damaged. And not by greedy workers and belligerent unions, but by mismanagement, corruption and a total lack of planning and foresight. The strike in its eleventh week is not a cause, but a symptom of the malaise.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 27 October 2014
Platinum mining giant Lonmin could have found the money to meet rock drillers’ pay demands instead of shifting funds between subsidiaries, possibly to avoid tax.
GroundUp staff
News | 16 October 2014
The question of class came to the fore this week with that arch free marketeer Ann Bernstein and the Centre for Democracy and Enterprise (CDE) hailing the potential growth of a global middle class, among them teachers. At the same time, the Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) concluded its conference, declaring teachers to be “revolutionary professionals, agents of change...in pursuit of socialism”.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 13 October 2014
Cape Town-based think-tank Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC), which was stopped by Lonmin from holding a press conference about the platinum company’s accounts, intends to hold the conference “very soon”.
GroundUp staff
News | 10 October 2014
Once again we are having calls from a number of trade unions for the private sector to exercise “social responsibility” in order to help build “a developmental state”. It is a far cry from 1996 when the combined labour movement presented alternative economic policy proposals.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 6 October 2014