Labour

Strike at popular Khayelitsha radio station

Programming returned to normal at Khayelitsha’s Radio Zibonele Community Station on Sunday following two days of disruptions due to a strike by the majority of the station's staff.

Johnnie Isaac

News | 5 May 2014

A brief history of May Day

The basic demand of May Day was for an eight-hour working day —eight for work, eight for leisure and eight for sleep. It is something we still have to achieve, not just in South Africa, but in many other countries.

Terry Bell

Analysis | 1 May 2014

Labour’s blind loyalty a democratic failure

The ongoing and increasingly bitter row within Cosatu boils down, basically, to a constitutional clash.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 29 April 2014

COSATU schisms make for a rocky road

We are in the midst of all the usual fanfare, the pledges, promises, rows and contradictions that accompany any run-up to a major election. But the scheduled national poll on 7 May seems to be beset by more bickering, bitterness and fragmentation than normal — and this is a clear portent for the future.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 22 April 2014

Still seeking fairness on the farms

Farm employer organisation AgriSA last week met with trade union representatives in an effort to strike a deal to allow unionisation on farms — and especially in the winelands of the Western Cape. “Most farmers still will not allow union representatives onto their properties,” says Federation of Unions (Fedusa) general secretary Dennis George.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 14 April 2014

Strike focus must be on jobs, not wages

A crunch point has this week been reached in the platinum sector. Stockpiles are all but exhausted and striking miners are starving. In normal circumstances this would be the time when compromise is reached, a matter of who blinks first.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 8 April 2014

Where worker deaths remain a secret

In 1997 15 workers at the Sasol Secunda plant were burned to death in what was described at the time as a “catastrophic fire”. What caused the blaze that killed them, how did they die and could they have been saved? These were questions the next of kin and their union wanted to know.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 31 March 2014

NEHAWU protests in City

About 1,000 to 1,500 members of the National Education Health and Allied Workers' Union marched through town on 27 March to the offices of the Western Cape government.

GroundUp Staff

Brief | 27 March 2014

Mediation is an Honourable Profession

In an unequal society where conflict between employers and employees is inevitable, the role of mediators who help to minimise the damage to protagonists and to society at large, is an honourable one. Such is the role of the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).

Terry Bell

Opinion | 24 March 2014