Southern Africa
Trade unions shut down South African farm workers strike
By Iqra Qalam, Jashua Lumet, December 8, 2012
The Congress of South African Trade Unions has called off a strike in the Western Cape Province in a bid to contain growing anger and resistance among farm workers.
The failure of land reform in South Africa
By Iqra Qalam, Joshua Lumet, December 6, 2012
The failure of the agrarian reform policies of the African National Congress has exposed the bourgeois nationalist liberation movement’s inability to resolve the land question.
South African farmworkers speak on issues in strike
By Joshua Lumet, Iqra Qalam, November 26, 2012
The trade unions and the political establishment are seeking to demobilize the farmworkers’ struggle, which follows and has been motivated by the eruption of strikes in the mining industries.
South African farm workers’ strike spreads
By Joshua Lumet, Iqra Qalam, November 21, 2012
The three-week-long strike by farm workers in the fertile farmlands of the Boland in South Africa has now spread to 24 different areas and has led to further violent clashes with police.
South African farm workers’ strikes inspired by events at Marikana
By Joshua Lumet, Iqra Qalam, November 16, 2012
Militant struggles among South Africa’s impoverished workers have spread to the Western Cape province’s farms, following on months of upheavals in the mining industry.
Charges of evidence tampering at South African mine massacre inquiry
By Julie Hyland, November 12, 2012
The inquiry into the South African police massacre of striking miners at Marikana heard evidence that police tampered with the scene to justify the killings.
Unions collude in repression as South Africa’s strike wave ebbs
By Chris Marsden, November 5, 2012
The South African Police Service is waging a brutal campaign of intimidation facilitated by the suffocation of strikes in the mining sector by the COSATU.
South African miners shot dead by security
By Bill Van Auken, November 1, 2012
Mine security guards shot and killed two striking coal miners in KwaZulu-Natal on Wednesday, amid continuing tensions and clashes in South Africa’s mining sector.
Striking South African miners oppose rally called by official unions
By Julie Hyland, October 29, 2012
Saturday’s rally by South Africa’s COSATU union federation and the National Union of Mineworkers only exposed the hostility of broad masses of workers toward the official unions.
South Africa's unions use mass sackings and murder to suppress miners
By Chris Marsden, October 26, 2012
Mass sackings, police intimidation and brutality are being employed in an effort to bring the wave of strikes in South Africa’s mines to a close.
Strike leaders arrested following testimony before Marikana massacre inquiry
By Chris Marsden, October 26, 2012
Four miners who testified Tuesday before the Farlam Commission into the Marikana massacre were immediately arrested by police. They are to be charged with murder.
President Zuma calls on trade unions, state forces to end South Africa’s strike wave
By Chris Marsden, October 20, 2012
The main instruments of Zuma and the African National Congress for suppressing the mass strike movement are the Congress of South African Trade Unions and its affiliate, the National Union of Mineworkers.
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