The cost of care
In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. What does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile?
labor
Mining, murder, and the machinery of exploitation
The massacre of artisanal miners in Stilfontein exposes the South African state’s violent allegiance to corporate interests and a long legacy of extraction and dispossession.
The gig economy’s false promise
Touted as a path to empowerment, Africa’s gig economy is a digital twist on old patterns of labor exploitation—but workers are fighting back.
Citizens for hire
Kenya’s labor export model treats citizens as commodities, exploiting workers for remittances while neglecting domestic job creation.
Metal that will bend
Once a beacon of hope for militant trade unionism, Numsa’s descent into corruption and political entanglement reflects the broader struggles facing South Africa’s labor movement.
Not only kafala
Domestic workers in the Gulf typically face a double bind: as a foreign worker, you are governed by kafala laws, while as a female, you are governed by the male guardianship system.
Stories untold
How a Senegalese trade unionist inspired one of the continent’s greatest filmmakers.
No scrubs
Why are Kenya’s doctor’s on strike?
Labor pains
Today, the Nigeria labor Congress barely commands the respect of Nigerian workers.
At what cost?
Malawi’s decision to send more than than 200 people to work on Israel’s farms sets a precedent for other African leaders to act with the same apathy.
Laboring at a crossroads
Nigeria’s Labor Party lost its way when it abandoned socialism for social democracy. Still, it remains essential for the labor movement to be organized under a party of its own.
The future of Angolan knowledge
Academics in Angola’s public universities are on strike. But instead of only being concerned with the decay of higher education, they are connecting with the struggles of Angola’s working class.
One of the great events in global labor history
2023 marks 50 years since the Durban Strikes. It doesn't fit neatly fit into mainstream accounts of the struggle against South African apartheid.
Making meaning in Johannesburg
Documenting an urban housing crisis and how tens of thousands of informal workers and unemployed people struggle to reshape Johannesburg.
What needs to fall to what needs to rise
The video playlist from our one-day symposium marking the 10th anniversary of the Marikana massacre—funded by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung—is now on YouTube.
Don’t mobilize, organize
To rebuild, the South African left must realize that there are no shortcuts to power.
We need to talk about wage theft
South African companies can afford to pay their workers a living wage—if not for their commitment to profit shifting, as the case of Lonmin and Marikana showed.
Where do trade unions go from here?
In South Africa, the seismic shifts in unionism triggered by the Marikana Massacre have sadly not resulted in a union movement better equipped to tackle the issues that workers face.
A post-neoliberal road to socialism in Chile
While Chileans have defeated the post-authoritarian neoliberal regime, they face major obstacles on the road to a post-neoliberal social democracy.
Killing the collective
We know an enormous amount about what precipitated the 2012 Marikana massacre, but relatively little about what is behind the violence there since.