Updates
CWAO Radio Updates bring weekly, relevant news to you as a worker – from rights to strikes, legislation to campaigns, and everything else affecting the working class.
Pay your sacked employee, CCMA orders management company
Woman worker wins case against employment benefits company, Salt EB, after she was unfairly dismissed.
Recycling company treating migrant workers like waste
Workers at East Rand recycling company M&N Waste are fighting back as their employer is breaking the law by refusing to pay them the National Minimum Wage of R28.79 per hour. Host: Muzi Mzoyi | Guests: Matsoanelo Matomotomo & Jordan Mondlane Produced by Charles Leonard; Engineered by Muzi Mzoyi
Resistance building against new anti-worker code of conduct
Nedlac has negotiated changes to the Labour Relations Act, Basic Conditions of Employment Act and the National Minimum Wage Act – the first is a proposed new Code of Good Practice on Dismissals. Even the trade union federations in Nedlac have agreed to this draft code, which will make it…
Update Special: Uproar over Draft Code of Good Practice on Dismissal
Thirty workers and social rights organisations have filed a joint submission to the Department of Employment and Labour and the Parliamentary Committee on Employment and Labour calling for the new Draft Code of Good Practice on Dismissal to be scrapped. They are also demanding public hearings to be held with…
Arbitration for Mr Sweet workers
Last year Mr Sweet fired several workers who went on a protected strike. Fifty-seven of them approached the CCMA and last week they got a decision there that they were satisfied with. Host: Muzi Mzoyi Produced by Charles Leonard; Engineered by Muzi Mzoyi
Migrant workers say it is enough now
This week we look at the treatment of migrant workers in South Africa and what is being done to organise them. More info: www.cwao.org.za
Labour court tells bosses, ‘This isn’t piece work’
Five female workers take on their employer for paying them in terms of a piece work system instead of the national minimum wage. And win. Anchor: Muzi Mzoyi
Buwa Basebetsi Updates: Mr Sweet Protest - Simunye Workers Forum reports
In this episode of Buwa Basebetsi Updates, Simunye Workers Forum worker activists speak to Mr Sweet protesting workers on the ground.
How government is trying to cut public service jobs
The government is trying to entice public servants over the age of 55 to take early retirement as part of its austerity measures. More details are expected in the National Budget speech. But at what cost?
Vegetable farm workers win at CCMA
ZGG farmworkers celebrate after winning yet another case at the CCMA against their employer in a series of battles since 2023. Anchor: Muzi Mzoyi Guests: Joshua Hlungwa; Phineas Ngobeni Credits: Produced and Engineered by Muzi Mzoyi; Edited by Charles Leonard Recorded in February 2025
Bosses going after their own foreign workers
Employers are using the lack of work permits to victimise their own foreign national workers who dare stand up for their rights. This is happening even though the Labour Relations Act also applies to migrants, even if they don’t have a valid work permit.
Premier Mister sweet dismiss more than 100 workers
In Buwa Basebetsi update this week: We look at the story of 110 Premier Mister Sweet Workers dismissed in January for taking part in a strike in 2024
Updates: End of Mr Sweet strike
Workers at the Mister Sweet confectionery factory in Wadeville, Gauteng, began a strike on 19 August, which ended 11 weeks later. The company is owned by Premier FMCG, one of the oldest food and consumer packaged goods businesses in South Africa. Premier FMCG’s chief executive officer, Kobus Gertenbach, earns R18.8…
Buwa Basebetsi Updates: Labour Rights Week
A five-day Labour Rights workshop for activists on the frontline of defending workers was hosted in Joburg. Hosted by the CWAO and Foundation for Human Rights, this five-day workshop is for activists (Human Rights Defenders) from 30 organisations who are all on the frontline of defending workers against exploitation and…
Buwa Basebetsi Updates: Labour Law Amendment Bill
On the 9th of October 2024, the Department of Employment & Labour issued a press statement where they shared their readiness of their inspectors to be deployed to enforce another “wave” of labour law amendments. Muzi Mzoyi sat down with John Appolis of the Casual Workers Advice Office, who broke…
Buwa Basebetsi: Woolies boss was paid 1,300 times as much as a shop floor worker
Here are two unsettling facts apparently meant to assure us that the market for labour is working well. A shop floor worker at Woolworths would have had to work for more than three years to earn as much money as the group’s CEO Roy Bagattini made in one day.
Buwa Basebetsi Updates: Mr Sweet Protest - Two months into strike
This week marks the 9th week since the start of Mister Sweet strike. On the 19th of August Workers at Mister Sweet went on strike demanding a R19000 basic salary as their main bone of content, but there are more issues than what meets the eye as we previously reported…
Buwa Basebetsi Updates: Salga, unions’ five-year wage deal locks workers into poverty
The first indications of what life will be like for public sector workers under the Government of National Unity (GNU) can arguably be seen in the pioneering five-year salary and wage agreement that was recently signed by municipal unions and the municipalities.
Buwa Basebetsi Updates: Mr Sweet Protest - A worker's story
This week marks the 8th week since the start of Mister Sweet strike. On the 19th of August Workers at Mister Sweet went on strike demanding a R19000 basic salary as their main bone of content, but there are more issues than what meets the eye as we previously reported…
Buwa Basebetsi Updates: ZGG foreign national workers barred from work
ZGG a vegetable and flowers farm west of Johannesburg has ordered 37 of its foreign national employees to stop coming to work if they do not have work permits or Asylum Seekers documents. They have been given two weeks or kiss their jobs a goodbye. This is even though some…