Workers Day – earlier this week – provided us with an opportunity to assess the state of employment and labour relations in our country.
The picture does not look good.
According to StatsSA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the 4th quarter of 2013 unemployment was at 24.1%. If one includes discouraged work-seekers the unemployment (expanded definition) rate jumps to 34%.
The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) has just published its final policy proposals on land reform titled “Strengthening the Relative Rights of People Working the Land“.
Sunday, 6 April will be the 362nd anniversary of the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck in the Cape – and of the founding of our mother city – Cape Town.
I welcome Cyril Ramaphosa’s response to my speech of 31 January, which dealt, among other topics, with the ANC’s approach to transformation – as embodied in its National Democratic Revolution (NDR).
South Africans would do well to take note of President Zuma’s statement in Parliament yesterday regarding the ANC’s plans to “intensify the implementation of affirmative action policies in order to deepen reconciliation and social cohesion in our country.” The President did not grab these ideas from the air – they are a core element of the second phase of the ANC’s National Democratic Revolution.
International Mother Language Day (IMLD) – on 21 February each year – celebrates language diversity, variety and multilingualism throughout the world.
In a recent article (abridged in the Cape Times, 20 January 2014) Professor Jane Duncan pointed to the fact that although socialist ideas are widely espoused by the masses there is little reference to socialism in most of our media. She says that objective viewers “would probably conclude that socialism was consigned to the dustbin of politically bankrupt ideas long ago.”
The way the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) of South Africa presently recommends candidates for judicial appointment to the President has been the subject of controversy and widespread criticism and raises concerns that it attaches excessive consideration to race and not enough to whether candidates are fit, proper and appropriately qualified.
The sorrow and adulation that the world has expressed following the recent death of Nelson Mandela are a worthy tribute to his greatness. Last Monday the British parliament added its voice to the global chorus. It was appropriate – because it was the same parliament that set the course for South Africa’s future history when it created the Union of South Africa only 103 years ago. In so doing it set the stage on which Nelson Mandela – who was born only eight years later – would play out his extraordinary career.
