South Africa

(Survey, part one); Collection of articles from Workers' Liberty 7, June 1987

Collection of short articles from Workers' Liberty 7, June 1987. Workers hit back at Haughey: Cuts to Irish heathcare South Africa: Free Moses Mayekiso! Leading Black South African trade unionist facing death-penalty Stalinism: Gorbachev and Soviet workers Union mergers: Reshaping of the British trade union movement. Malta: Fall of the governing Labour party Australia: Bob Hawke's governing Labor Party seeks 3rd term Click here to download pdf .

South Africa: The Way to a Workers' Party

There are many political strands besides the ANC in the movement against apartheid - "Black Consciousness" militants, socialists, and "workerists" from the FOSATU federation of the early 1980s. Click here to download pdf .

South African miners: Black Gold, White Profits

The history of the mineworkers in South Africa, from the discovery of diamonds and then gold in the 1880s through the strikes of 1920, 1922, and 1946, to the 1980s. Click here to download pdf .

South Africa: one million strike against austerity

A public sector strike that mobilised over a million workers over 20 days has been suspended, with unions winning gains but many workers thinking they could win more. The strike is the biggest in the history of South Africa, which is the largest and most significant economy in the continent. Action began in August after workers rejected bosses’ pay offer of 7% and its offer to increase the housing allowance to 700 Rand per month. The scope of the strike soon expanded to take in other issues, such as medical allowances. Teachers’ leader Thobile Ntola said “This strike is not only about the...

South Africa: “My name is Ethelina and I am on strike for my human rights”

A striker at Dis-Chem Pharmacies tells of her life. Dis-Chem is a major company in South Africa, and the workers have been on strike since 27 May 2010. From the South Africa Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union. My name is Ethelina and I am fifty-eight years old. I work as a cleaner. I`ve been working for Dis-Chem since January 1996 and I still only earn R3600 per month. I live in a shack in Orange Farm [a very poor Johannesburg township]. Every morning I get out of bed at 3.30 am and leave the house before 4am, when my family is still asleep, to make sure I get to work on time at 7am...

Workers vs police at the World Cup

Whilst the constant buzz of vuvuzelas and the chirpy pre-match commentary from Adrian Chiles and a rotating line-up of ex-footballers sound throughout the South African stadiums, a more important noise is resonating in the country. “We are struggling for our country!”came the chants of striking stewards demanding that contractors increase their tiny wages, and as we go to press the pay dispute is spreading to most of the stadiums hosting the World Cup. The stewards, working for Stallion Security, had started their struggle in Durban with a protest outside the company’s office. Strikers later...

World Cup wildcat: stewards walk out over low pay

From the BBC website Stewards due to provide security at a World Cup football match in South Africa have gone on strike in a dispute over wages. About 1,000 police officers stood in for the stewards at the game, between Italy and Paraguay in Cape Town. Fans said there appeared to be no security problems at the match, which ended in a 1-1 draw. Earlier, riot police in Durban fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of stewards protesting over pay. South Africa's World Cup chief, Danny Jordaan, said it was "unacceptable" for the stewards to be trying to disrupt the games. He said it was an "employer...

World Cup: forced evictions and hyper-exploitation

Even for those of us who love sport, the saccharine liberal puff that inevitably accompanies any major sporting event can be a little nauseating. Once you realise that it’s not an insufficient quantity of football in the world that causes poverty, racism etc, and that these things cannot be magicked away by the unifying power of the beautiful game, you begin to begin to find statements like this one, accompanying FIFA’s “Win With Africa” campaign, very tiresome: “The goal is to reach beyond football, because FIFA firmly believes its responsibilities extend outside the sphere of the sport...

On the murder of Eugene Terre'Blanche

On 3 April Eugene Terre’Blanche , South African white supremacist leader and Nazi sympathiser, was hacked to death at his farm by two of his workers following a wage dispute. In Their Morals and Ours , Leon Trotsky wrote: "Is individual terror permissible or impermissible from the point of view of ‘pure morals’? In this abstract form the question does not exist at all for us. Conservative Swiss bourgeois even now render official praise to the terrorist William Tell. Our sympathies are fully on the side of Irish, Russian, Polish or Hindu terrorists in their struggle against national and...

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