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May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
May 28 2012 07:53
The City of Cape Town has spent R175m running the Myciti bus service since the Soccer World Cup compared to an income of R35m, a report says.
Johannesburg - Members of the National Union of Mineworkers (Num) are ready to strike at noon at construction sites including 2010 World Cup stadiums, the union said on Wednesday.
"Our workers doing construction at the Komati mine are already on strike," Num spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka said.
"Even construction at mines will be affected," he said.
Asked if the "no work no pay" principle would shorten the strike, Seshoka said it would make no difference.
"Before deciding on the strike we sat down with our members and discussed the implications and they said they were not bothered.
"This could turn out to be the longest strike and it could be listed in the Guinness Book of World Records," he added.
Seshoka told Sapa some construction workers were earning as little as R4.50 per hour.
"The strike by 70 000 workers will go ahead," he added.
In a statement on Tuesday, NUM accused the SA Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors (Safcec) of "lying to the nation" by saying that workers' demands were equivalent to an increase of 65% in rand terms.
The union said it wanted only a 13 percent increase and that it had rejected outright the employers' offer of 10.4%.
Spokesperson for Safcec Joe Campanella, however, told Sapa the union had not taken into account the other aspects of the package.
Demands included not only the 13% salary hike, but an annual bonus, daily allowances, paid maternity leave and a minimum wage.
"If you take all those demands into account - and not only the 13% wage increase - then Safcec estimates that the union is asking for a 65% increase," he said.
- Sapa