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Cape Town - In his latest Labour Wrap, Terry Bell admits that he was conservative in his estimate of the economic difficulties faced by low-income families in South Africa.
The need for double digit pay increases, he says, was clearly spelled out in a well research food price barometer submitted to Fin24 by the Pietermartitzburg Agency for Social Action, which he unpacks in this Labour Wrap video.
But he adds that this merely confirms the fact that there is “a rough road ahead”, especially with Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) [JSE:AMS] this week announcing the closure or disposal of older underground platinum mines.
Such action, Bell says, has been wrongly blamed on the demands of workers and the recent five-month strike. It was “on the cards” for some time, he maintains. Especially since Amplats was given mining rights to 137 sq km of platinum reserves that could be extracted by highly mechanised, low-labour open cast methods.
Watch:
On this basis, he points out that the “blame game” has no merit, but notes that there are groups that are seeking solutions. To the forefront of these are trade unions, but the whole exercise seems to him mired in confusion with some unions proudly laying claim to words such as “socialism” while their opponents use the same term in an abusive sense.
This, says Bell, is an example of jargon driven by blind emotion rather than rational thinking. For this reason, he proposes to try to clarify the terminology and definitions in his Inside Labour column (published every Friday) in the hope of stimulating “meaningful debate”.
* What's your take? Add your voice to the ongoing labour debate or ask Terry any labour-related questions.
The need for double digit pay increases, he says, was clearly spelled out in a well research food price barometer submitted to Fin24 by the Pietermartitzburg Agency for Social Action, which he unpacks in this Labour Wrap video.
But he adds that this merely confirms the fact that there is “a rough road ahead”, especially with Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) [JSE:AMS] this week announcing the closure or disposal of older underground platinum mines.
Such action, Bell says, has been wrongly blamed on the demands of workers and the recent five-month strike. It was “on the cards” for some time, he maintains. Especially since Amplats was given mining rights to 137 sq km of platinum reserves that could be extracted by highly mechanised, low-labour open cast methods.
Watch:
On this basis, he points out that the “blame game” has no merit, but notes that there are groups that are seeking solutions. To the forefront of these are trade unions, but the whole exercise seems to him mired in confusion with some unions proudly laying claim to words such as “socialism” while their opponents use the same term in an abusive sense.
This, says Bell, is an example of jargon driven by blind emotion rather than rational thinking. For this reason, he proposes to try to clarify the terminology and definitions in his Inside Labour column (published every Friday) in the hope of stimulating “meaningful debate”.
* What's your take? Add your voice to the ongoing labour debate or ask Terry any labour-related questions.
