Labour

Kimberley’s desperate miners: where the formal and informal sectors clash

Hundreds of unemployed Kimberley residents have turned to digging deserted mine dumps to earn a living.

Douglas Mthukwane

News | 27 January 2015

Delays with Home Affairs permits: Zimbabweans sent away from work

Three Zimbabwean men whose permits are pending have been told to leave their jobs at Touareg Tents in Capricorn Business Park and return only when they can prove they are legally in the country.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 27 January 2015

Call for youth subsidy to be scrapped

Labour and education rights groups have called for the immediate scrapping of the youth wage subsidy following the release of UCT research on its effectiveness.

Barbara Maregele

News | 22 January 2015

Constitutional rights apply to sex workers too

A year ago, some boys in my street came home late at night with a sex worker. They refused to pay her.

Abigail McDougall

Opinion | 22 January 2015

Is this the dirtiest job in Cape Town?

It’s midday and in 29 degree heat Sannicare contract workers Prudence Brink, Carmelita Johnson and Francious Beukes are having lunch, sitting on empty portable toilets in front of the depot at Airport Industria where thousands of toilets are cleaned daily.

Text by Zintle Swana. Photos by Masixole Feni.

Feature | 21 January 2015

City’s janitorial programme to be scrapped in some areas

The City of Cape Town will not be renewing the contracts of janitors employed to clean flush toilets in some informal settlements in the city.

Barbara Maragele

News | 19 January 2015

Hope Street carpenter evicted, again

Hope Street’s pavement carpenter Mark Philander again had his material confiscated by officers from the City of Cape Town Law Enforcement this morning. Now, a local councillor has committed to linking Philander to the City’s informal traders unit in an attempt to find a public space for him to work legally and unhindered.

Daneel Knoetze

News | 13 January 2015

Striking farm workers reinstated

The eleven workers who were dismissed from Steytler Boerdery outside Robertson for taking part in strikes in January 2013 have reached a settlement with their employer and have been reinstated.

Daneel Knoetze

News | 9 January 2015

Going to bed hungry on a fruit farm

The minimum wage for farm workers is due to increase at the end of February. But seasonal worker Mercia Plaatjies doesn’t expect the increase to make much difference to her life.

Daneel Knoetze

News | 8 January 2015

We need a definition of a living wage

Instead of focusing on percentage increases, wage negotiations should be based on a clear definition of a living wage, write Trenton Elsley and George Mthethwa.

Trenton Elsley and George Mthethwa

Opinion | 6 January 2015

Workers lose out as construction sector expands

The construction sector has grown enormously in the last 20 years, but the old system of cheap labour still prevails, writes Eddie Cottle.

Eddie Cottle

Opinion | 5 January 2015

The silver lining to those dark clouds of global turmoil

As another year draws to a close, the advice usually attributed to the Italian revolutionary, Antonio Gramsci constantly comes to mind: exercise pessimism of the intellect, but optimism of the will. I must admit that it has become a great deal easier over recent months to exercise pessimism of the intellect — and increasingly difficult to exercise optimism of the will to do something about changing things, domestically or globally.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 22 December 2014

Hope Street carpenter shut down

When it is late at night and Cape Town’s streets are quiet, Mark Philander’s faint hammering at his pavement workshop on Hope Street can still be heard.

Daneel Knoetze

Feature | 18 December 2014

Minimum wage debate: the old cheap labour system will get us nowhere

The low wage argument is a red herring, argue Gilad Isaacs and Ben Fine in the latest contribution to the minimum wage debate.

Gilad Isaacs and Ben Fine

Opinion | 17 December 2014

Cape Town congress shows how Rana Plaza offers hope for workers’ rights

Rana Plaza was the deadliest factory disaster in history. On April 23 last year a shoddily built eight-storey building in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, collapsed.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 15 December 2014

R3.30 an hour: De Doorns child labour probed

The Department of Labour is investigating allegations of child labour on a grape and mushroom farm in the Hex Valley, outside De Doorns.

Daneel Knoetze

Feature | 15 December 2014