Issue 44, No. 1 – Workers During COVID-19
Uber Eats gets indigestion
In December 2020 during the COVID pandemic Uber Eats’ couriers downed tools in the first ever national ‘platform’ strike in South Africa. Although their gains were minimal the writing is…
‘It is just a hustle’: A migrant vendor speaks
For an immigrant street trader in Durban, life was hard before the lockdown in 2020. But the COVID-19 crisis lowered earnings even further. This is a condensed story of a…
She even considered living in a tree: A Domestic Worker Speaks
Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) conducted a number of interviews with workers in vulnerable and informal employment during the 2020 lockdown. This is a condensed version of…
Women carry the heavy load of COVID-19
COVID-19 has increased pressures on women. Liesl Orr argues that it is mainly women who work in low paid service and health jobs, and so at work they are vulnerable…
A Just and Equitable South Africa :Universal Basic Income Grant
The model of wage labour is coming to an end as unemployment rises and wages fall to unacceptable levels. Awande Buthelezi makes the case for a Universal Basic Income Grant,…
Fear and Frustration: Voices of Taxi Drivers and Passengers
Taxi drivers and passengers feel that they have little protection from contracting Covid 19. Rob Rees interviewed a number of people who explained their frustration and fears but it is…
Migrant Wellbeing : Social Security Responses in a Time of Deadly Disease
Migrants in South Africa under the Covid 19 lockdown suffered acutely. Janet Munakamwe explains why this was the case and argues for a different way of managing migrant workers’ needs….
Same storm, different boat : Covid-19 and South African informal workers
Many people have suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic but some groups of South Africans have more than others. Michael Rogan and Caroline Skinner show through statistics and data analysis that…
Digitalisation and post-work utopias: A view from the global South
Many people in the global North are putting forward the idea of a future without wage-labour, including exploitative digitalised work. Ruth Castel-Branco and Sandiswa Mapukata look at a redistribution of…
Worker stress and some interventions
All workers in South Africa, but particularly workers in the informal economy, lost incomes and livelihoods during the COVID 19 lockdown begun in March 2020. Pat Horn outlines the important…