BRICS unions discuss decent work and sustainable development31 July, 2018The BRICS Trade Union Forum (BTUF), an alliance of union federations from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is demanding a developmental and democratic model as an alternative to the dominant global financial institutions, especially the IMF and the World Bank.
South Africa: Mine responsibly and improve working conditions, recommends report30 July, 2018If public statements on working conditions by mining companies are to be believed, the demands by trade unions on health and safety, workers’ rights, and the ending of unethical labour practices would have been met.
South Africa: union in historic court victory against precarious work26 July, 2018The Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa, has ruled that an employer cannot employ a worker for more than three months without a permanent contract.
South Africa: Six workers die in underground fire at copper mine18 July, 2018With six mineworkers killed and 48 injured in an underground fire at Palabora Copper Mine in the Limpopo Province caused by a burning conveyor belt, increasingly South African mines are becoming death-traps for mine workers.
South Africa: Footwear strike for a living wage enters second week17 July, 2018Thousands of workers in the footwear sector are on strike for a second week demanding a wage increase of 9.5 per cent while the employers are offering 6.25 per cent.
South Africa: Union demands justice for woman worker murdered at electricity sub-station28 June, 2018In May last year, power utility Eskom worker, 29-year-old Thembisile Yende, was murdered whilst at work at an electricity sub-station in Ekurhuleni near Johannesburg. On 28 June, the court said that the director of public prosecutions has provisionally withdrawn the charges against her alleged killer, David Ngwenya, a technician at Eskom.
South Africa: Unions meet to build an Africa-Europe network across the Lear supply chain22 June, 2018IndustriALL Global Union affiliates in Germany and South Africa working for Lear Corporation are meeting in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, from 20–22 June to discuss ways to collaborate on improving conditions for workers in Africa and Europe.
South African unions reject Eskom’s zero-increase in wages15 June, 2018Thousands of workers picketed outside Eskom offices in Johannesburg on 14 June to demand a 15 per cent wage increase and reject a no-increase announcement by state-owned energy company Eskom, who is arguing that it is broke.
South Africa: Union calls for improved health and safety after four mineworkers are killed at Sibanye Stillwater gold mine13 June, 2018The deaths at Sibanye Stillwater operations in 2018 go beyond previous years with 11 killed in 2016, and nine in 2017. This year the death toll is already at 18 showing that the company’s operations are increasingly becoming death-traps for mineworkers.
South Africa: Union condemns retrenchment of 1,722 mineworkers at Evander gold mine16 May, 2018Pan African Resources’ Evander gold mine in Barberton, Mpumalanga Province, has given notice to retrench 95 per cent of its workers – 1722 workers out of 1812 – by the end of May. IndustriALL affiliate the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is asking that the Department of Mineral Resources intervene to save the jobs, even if it means that the government revokes the mining licence.
