The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
SACSIS promotes the principle of just economies. We are opposed to economic development that violates social and economic rights and increases inequalities in the pursuit of economic growth.
Dale T. McKinley -
If ever there was an example of a discursively circular and politically manipulated ‘debate’ in post-1994 South Africa, it is nationalisation. Like a differentially located scene from a Hollywood western, poker-faces and raised guns are instantly drawn at the mere mention of the word. And, just like the absurdity of the ensuing cinematic shootouts the nationalisation battleground always ends up covered in copious amounts of ‘blood and guts’ without anything having...
Leonard Gentle -
Lenin once said, “There are decades when nothing happens and then there are weeks when decades happen.” British Labour Party Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, was to similarly explore the vicissitudes of political time when he remarked, “a week was a long time in politics.”
It’s too early to say whether the week beginning 12 August 2013 was such a week, as might have been thought of by either the revolutionary Lenin or the reformist Wilson. Yet two events in that...
Mohamed Motala -
What happens to Zwelinzima Vavi and COSATU is less important than what is happening to worker organisations themselves.
At its launch in 1985, COSATU put forward “worker control” as one of its founding principles. ANC General Secretary, Gwede Mantashe, recently accused some unions of drifting away from worker control and being “politically and ideologically immature”. But Mantashe, who is formerly from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), has an ill-conceived...
Glenn Ashton -
Structural poverty, exacerbated by falling employment, has dogged South Africa since 1994. Subsequently unemployment has officially increased from around one fifth of the active workforce, to a quarter today. The unofficial “expanded” and probably more realistic level of unemployment is closer to 40%. This issue, more than any other, threatens the fundamental stability of our nation.
In 1995 the philosopher Jeremy Rifkin published a book called the “The End of...
Jim Nichol -
The story of the run-up to the Marikana massacre is one of collusion between the state, the platinum mining company Lonmin and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
Each had the same vested interest in breaking the unofficial strike at Marikana. Lonmin came up with a strategy to achieve it.
Lonmin wrote to the minister of mines, Susan Shabangu, “The state should bring to bear on this crucial sector of the economy using resources at its disposal to resolutely bring the...
Frank Meintjies -
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is a giant, but a wounded one. For over 25 years, it has dominated the labour scene as the voice of organised workers. But now, there are big changes in the world of trade unions and rumblings that new forces are entering the scene. This has been brought to the fore with the emergence of Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and its rise to majority union status in the platinum sector.
Writing in the wake of Marikana,...
