Editorial

Whatever the new dawn represents that the president has heralded, it is doing little to ward off the cold. Winter is upon us and the embers of workers’ struggle started catching fire this week as the campaign to Scrap the New Labour Laws took to Johannesburg’s streets. What was evidently new in this dawn was brandished on a picket held by a worker with the Simunye Workers Forum – Cosatu voetsek! Since the federation’s leadership had negotiated amendments that are unmitigated bad news for workers, there was no forgiveness for Cosatu. Its alliance to the ruling party will have to end if it has a future as a workers’ organisation. Tied to Ramaphosa it can only sink.

Something of the spell that social media has cast of over its users was lost this week as well. A British public relations company that’s not Bell Pottinger was caught on tape admitting to the manipulation of elections the world over. It was revealed that the company influenced the election of Trump by accessing the data from 50-million Facebook accounts. As Facebook’s stock took a pummeling, CEO Zuckerberg was forced to issue an apology for ‘mistakes’, as if the commodification of the personal is not Facebook’s business model.

And in Palestine this week, 17-year-old Ahed Tamimi was sentenced to 8 months imprisonment as part of a plea bargain with Israeli military prosecutors. Here is a stark statement of the brutality of the Israeli regime – sending a teenager to prison for slapping a soldier who had invaded her home after her young cousin had been shot in the head. Israel is an apartheid state. No doubt. For her heroism, Tamimi is a Palestinian Winnie.

SOUTH AFRICA

No national minimum wage on May 1, but delay ‘necessary’

On Thursday, the acting chairwoman of the portfolio committee on labour agreed to proposals that the May 1 deadline set for the minimum wage implementation be pushed back to allow MPs time to consider more than 40 public submissions received on the draft legislation. businesslive.co.za/

Defending workers’ rights this Sharpeville Day

The #ScrapTheNewLabourLaws Campaign is a coalition of progressive pro-working class movements who are committed to achieving equality and justice for workers and their families. We have come together to unite our efforts to stop this government from taking away our hard won right to strike. livingwageza.wordpress.com/

Memorandum of demands

The contents of the labour law amendments amount to a shocking and devastating attack on the rights of workers in South Africa, with the most vulnerable workers especially targeted. livingwageza.wordpress.com/

NUMSA calls on all workers to embark on 25 April General Strike to defend the right to strike!

NUMSA will work with #ScrapNewLabourLaws coalition to mobilize every worker in the country about the negative impact of the labour laws. The only power we have to negotiate improved working and living conditions is our right to strike. Join the campaign as we embark on a national general strike to shut down the economy on the 25th of April. livingwageza.wordpress.com/

NMW Bill heads to Parliament amid concerns

“The National Minimum Wage Bill and associated amendments to the BCEA and LRA contain serious weaknesses that undermine their ability to provide a universal wage floor, reduce poverty and inequality, and protect the most vulnerable workers” – National Minimum Wage Research Initiative wits.ac.za/

Women of Glebelands hostel devastated by violence

Glebelands in Durban was built in the 1960s as part of the apartheid government’s push to meet the labour needs of a rapidly industrialising city. Though an increasing number of women joined their husbands and fathers at the former hostel since then, it remains a male-dominated community. The spate of killings has left widows, orphans and even extended families bereft of their sole breadwinner. groundup.org.za/

Life Esidimeni families awarded R1.2-million compensation each

Retired Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke said on Monday that government must pay relatives of psychiatric patients who died or were moved from Life Esidimeni in 2016 compensation for their callous violation of the Constitution. dailymaverick.co.za/

Marikana workers live in dire conditions three years after Farlam report [photo essay]

Only about one in five Lonmin employees stay in decent housing. In 2014 Lonmin promised to convert 128 hostels and build 4,400 apartments (instead of the 5,500 houses in the 2006 plan). All the hostel upgrades were completed by May 2017. However, only 793 of the 4,400 apartments have been allocated as of February 2018. groundup.org.za/

Mining Charter: Communities cry foul over Mantashe’s consultations

Community groups like Macuwa were incensed after Mantashe excluded them from discussions this weekend on the Mining Charter with unions and company associations, despite a Pretoria High Court ruling in February compelling the department of mineral resources to include them in the discussions. dailymaverick.co.za/

Nigerian bank investigation could embroil MTN, Ramaphosa

Ramaphosa’s former investment holding company, Shanduka, is among previous and current shareholders in MTN Nigeria whose names have cropped up during a forensic audit of billions of dollars flowing in and out of Nigeria. businesslive.co.za/

Vodacom data prices due to VAT increase

Other mobile carriers such as Cell C and Telkom have yet to release their new prices. iol.co.za/

Media24 pays millions in cartel conduct settlement

Media24 has agreed to pay a R14-million admission of guilt settlement, for price-fixing and fixing of trade conditions. The media corporation was one of 28 companies referred to the Competition Tribunal for prosecution. enca.com/

Systembolaget demands improved standards at Leeuwenkuil

Swedish liquor retailer Systembolaget says it will consider terminating its contract with South African wine producer Leeuwenkuil unless working conditions at its vineyards are improved. pambazuka.org/

The Promised Land: How MK vet made farming work for him

Former uMkhonto weSizwe fighter Errol April swapped his AK47 for apples. In 2013, April was given a Western Cape fruit farm to run as part of a government land scheme. dailymaverick.co.za/

INTERNATIONAL

America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

In the U.S., retailers announced more than 3,000 store openings in the first three quarters of this year. But chains also announced 6,800 would close. bloomberg.com/

“We’d stage the whole thing”: Cambridge Analytica was filmed boasting of its role in Kenya’s polls

Just days after Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica for illegally harvesting data from 50 million profiles, executives from the firm have been caught on tape bragging about how they secretly ran campaigns in elections across the world—including Kenya’s 2013 and 2017 polls. qz.com/

The Cambridge Analytica Scandal Could Provide Hard Evidence of “Israeli” Meddling in Trump Election

The CEO of the data harvesting firm Cambridge Analytica Alexander Nix boasted of his ability to employ “Israeli companies” to gather intelligence on politicians that the firm is paid to slander, defame and entrap. Nix then went on to praise the ability of “Israeli” intelligence personnel in what can only be described as a power sales pitch to a would-be client. globalresearch.ca/

PALESTINE

Israel sentences Ahed Tamimi to eight months in prison

An Israeli military court has approved a plea deal which will see Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi serve an eight-month prison sentence on top of a fine of nearly US$1,500. electronicintifada.net/

NEW TECHNOLOGIES / NEW FORMS OF LABOUR

Time to cut ties with the digital oligarchs and rewire the web

Facebook’s Surveillance Machine

Facebook’s business model, which involves having people go to the site for social interaction, only to be quietly subjected to an enormous level of surveillance. The results of that surveillance are used to fuel a sophisticated and opaque system for narrowly targeting advertisements and other wares to Facebook’s users. nytimes.com/

Edward Snowden: Facebook is a surveillance company rebranded as ‘social media’

“Businesses that make money by collecting and selling detailed records of private lives were once plainly described as ‘surveillance companies,'” Snowden said. “Their rebranding as ‘social media’ is the most successful deception since the Department of War became the Department of Defense.” washingtonexaminer.com/

Zuckerberg’s ‘secret police’: how Facebook’s ‘rat-catching team’ spies on employees

ENVIIRONMENT

World Water Day for a plastic world

Water related challenges can not be solved within a global capitalist system that is itself destroying nature. aljazeera.com/