Platinum Strike: Where to Now? [Updated]
Update: Late yesterday news broke of an “in principle” agreement on a new wage offer between Amcu and the platinum producers. According to www.platinumwagenegotiations.co.za, which is run by the platinum producers, Amcu will be taking this offer to striking mineworkers for a mandate to accept the offer. It is believed that this new offer consists of an […]
The “Numsa Moment”: A New Trajectory for Workers
In January 1973, dockworkers in Durban embarked on a wave of wildcat strikes against low wages. In total, some 61 000 workers took part. What became known as the “Durban Moment” not only broke the industrial relations framework that had been established after black trade unions had been smashed by the apartheid state in […]
The Co-option of Amcu’s Radical Heart?
“It’s not even that the mine bosses liked the NUM [National Union of Mineworkers], they just liked using it.” As he says this, the Socialist Group’s Trevor Ngwane is thumbing through a photocopied, comb-bound recognition agreement signed early this year between the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) and Anglo American Platinum (Amplats). The […]