The struggle for a national minimum wage in South Africa has a long history, having been waged, largely by organised worker formations, since the 1930s. These efforts have taken various forms, from open class conflict to more subdued trade union representations to the various governments of the day.
Eddie Cottle
Opinion | 31 August 2015
The Medicines Control Council has for many years been severely criticised for the exceptionally long time it takes to register a medicine. It is not unusual for a medicine to become available in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States years ahead of its appearance in South Africa.
Henry M. J. Leng and David Sanders
Analysis | 31 August 2015
Oh, when will they ever learn? It’s the last line in every stanza of a famous Pete Seeger anti-war song. And it is wholly appropriate this week as we digest the latest GDP figures against a background of ongoing crises especially in the steel, mining and manufacturing sectors. Along with, of course, the continuing collapse of the rand.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 31 August 2015
The 2016 local government elections will be surely be heavily contested. Already in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay, the ANC, DA and EFF are gearing up for tough electoral battles. No doubt too, all the political parties will pour large sums of money into these areas. But quite how much political parties will spend on campaigning, no one knows, because of a complete lack of transparency in the funding of political parties.
Judith February
Opinion | 27 August 2015
A recent judgment in the Durban High Court has confirmed what shack dwellers, urban land occupiers and their lawyers have known for some time – the state’s habitual use of legal loopholes to evict land occupiers from their homes is unconstitutional. What’s more, Judge Mokgohla’s decision has finally showed up the courts as sharing responsibility for allowing these evictions to go on unchecked.
Daneel Knoetze
Analysis | 26 August 2015
Just over two years after the books for the blind treaty was signed in Marrakesh, Morocco, South Africa has finally taken steps toward ratifying the treaty.
Marcus Low
Analysis | 26 August 2015
Every day millions across South Africa do arduous work in jobs that cannot keep them and their dependants out of poverty. These are the “working poor” and according to a new study, there are about five and half million of them.
Gilad Isaacs
Opinion | 25 August 2015
The whole question of colonialism has come to the fore again, courtesy of the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) and its vehement objection to the introduction of the Chinese Mandarin dialect to local schools.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 24 August 2015
This month, international human rights body Amnesty International voted to “pursue a policy to protect the human rights of sex workers.” Its decision has generated much media attention and debate and has been opposed by many well-intentioned people and institutions.
Marlise Richter and Ruvimbo Tenga
Opinion | 21 August 2015
Being able to vote for our leaders is what it means to live in a democracy. Yet the Eastern Cape government tried to block a rural Eastern Cape community from electing their leader. Yesterday the community won an important court victory. Wilmien Wicomb of the Legal Resources Centre explains.
Wilmien Wicomb
Analysis | 19 August 2015
The South Gauteng High Court has delivered a judgment that promotes openness and helps people injured at work, or the families of people killed at work, realise their rights.
Tim Fish Hodgson
Analysis | 17 August 2015
Large scale redundancies in the South African mining sector, running to tens of thousands of jobs, are probably inevitable. But only because of the system in which we have to operate.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 17 August 2015
Three years ago on this day, the police shot dead 34 miners at Marikana. Here are some of the articles we've published since then that, sadly, remain current and relevant.
GroundUp Staff
Analysis | 16 August 2015
There is a deepening crisis of overcrowding, joblessness, insecurity and general destitution at Wolwerivier relocation camp. The community have explained their experiences, along with a call for engagement and support, in writing to the City of Cape Town. Their letter was ignored.
Daneel Knoetze
Opinion | 14 August 2015
Evictions are a daily part of living on the margins in South Africa. This week, residents were evicted from a block of flats in Berea, Johannesburg. Authorities descended early on Wednesday morning on the flats where hundreds are people are living. Their personal belongings – including fridges, clothes and computers – were left outside in the street. Where do such people go? In Cape Town, they have been sent to a place called Blikkiesdorp.
Alison Tilley
Opinion | 13 August 2015
Every year as August dawns there is a media ritual about women’s rights and, on August 9, a positive rash of declarations of intent and remembrances about the 1956 anti-pass march of the women on Union Buildings. But while institutionalised apartheid has gone, the position of women in South Africa and around the world remains demonstrably unequal and, in some cases is worse now than it was 20 or more years ago.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 11 August 2015