Author: MastaBaba

This author has written 371 articles

Drop the Unjust Disciplinary Charges Against Shoprite Workers

Boycott Shoprite!

Over 100 workers at Shoprite in Windhoek have been facing disciplinary charges and possible dismissal for 3 years for taking part in a strike which provoked by Shoprite’s illegal conduct. The workers are bravely fighting to keep their jobs and they want to be treated with respect and justice at work.

In July 2014 Shoprite unlawfully withheld a salary increase from those of its workers who belonged to a trade union that was seeking recognition as their collective bargaining representative. After the company ignored the workers’ petitions, they commenced a strike to resist this illegal discrimination. After one day, Shoprite backed down and paid the workers their increase.

Freedom Isn’t Free – A Review

By Lenny Gentle

Adopted by the ANC and its fellow Congress Alliance partners at Kliptown in 1955 the Freedom Charter has been a rallying symbol and inspiration for many activists for decades. But it has as well been a source of divisions within the liberation movement – the PAC, for instance, split from the ANC in 1957 saying that the Freedom Charter represented the domination of white liberalism over the ANC. And at COSATU’s 1987 Congress the debate as to whether COSATU should adopt the Freedom Charter was one of the hottest and most divisive in its history – as some unions wanted to align COSATU with the ANC and others warned that what was needed was a Workers’ Charter which would focus COSATU on its goal of winning socialism.