Winning strikes - A guide to strike action
- Authors: CWIU
- Date: 1992
- Subjects: CWIU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/155901 , vital:39929
- Description: In recent years, CWIU has been amongst the top six unions involved in strike activity in South Africa. The militancy of our members dates back to the early seventies when it was often impossible to get union recognition without strike action. Over and above plant strikes, the membership of CWIU have a rich history of participating in political mass actions such as the stayaway in the Transvaal in November 1984 against conditions in the schools and townships, and against the LRA Amendments in the late 1980's, and in 1990 and 1991 against VAT. Today, when the bosses are talking about retrenchment, rationalisation, inflation, privatisation, deregulation and productivity, the strike remains one of the most powerful and favoured weapons of the organised labour movement. But not all strikes have been successful. A number of heroic battles fought by workers were defeated. At times workers go on strikes without properly preparing. At other times the issue that they are fighting can be bettter resolved through other avenues of struggle. This booklet is a manual for strike action. We hope that it will assist workers in taking effective and planned action to avoid some of the pitfalls of the past. The booklet outlines some of the key questions that workers should answer before going on strike. It also discusses the most important elements of strike organisation.
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- Date Issued: 1992
Working with the contemptuous client in psychotherapy
- Authors: Hoffman, Elan
- Date: 1992
- Subjects: Psychotherapist and patient -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3213 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012315 , Psychotherapist and patient -- Case studies
- Description: The purpose of this case study is to explore the issue of contempt in the therapeutic relationship. The aims are twofold; namely, to illustrate to what extent the case studied throws light on existing theories on contempt in psychotherapy, and to enquire about which stance adopted by the therapist is most appropriate in the therapeutic interaction with a contemptuous client. It investigates the validity of using the case study method in examining both the content and the process of this particular course of psychotherapy. Literature on contempt in psychotherapy is reviewed, as well as the foundation-stone on which it rests, namely, the Kleinian approach to envy . The concepts of the superego and false self are also drawn upon in understanding this particular client's dynamics. The client's therapy is then presented and explored, in order to gain insight into how a psychotherapist's understanding of the contemptuous client can clarify the process of therapy. It highlights the limitations and potentialities that exist in working in this sphere of resistance, and raises questions relevant to therapists faced with these clients. The case study shows how theory in this area is helpful in understanding the contemptuous client, and that the ability of the therapist to endure and survive the contempt of the client is a crucial factor in working with the contemptuous individual.
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- Date Issued: 1992
Writing left: Ruth First and radical South African journalism in the 1950's
- Authors: Pinnock, Don
- Date: 1992
- Subjects: First, Ruth, 1925-1982 Journalism -- Political aspects -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2822 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003032
- Description: In a prison cell in Johannesburg in 1953 after months of solitary confinement Ruth First, one of South Africa's finest investigative joumalists, attempted to commit suicide. In a sense, information for this thesis has been gathered around the question of why First felt her life had reached a point where she wished it extinguished. The answer involves who she was, what she believed in and her perception at that moment in time of the magnitude of the defeat of all she had worked for. But this question has broader implications - it has been asked because its answer throws light not only on the particular joumalist, but on the radical press and on the political movements which gave it both life and readers. This study is divided into six sections: Origins and influences looks, firstly, at early Jewish migrations and Ruth's life up to the end of her schooling in Johannesburg, then at her university years and the influence on her life of the Communist Party of South Africa. A vigorously provocative life traces debates which led to the formation of the South African Congress of Democrats and the Congress Alliance. It looks, also, at the political influence of the white Left and the radical social fratemity. Trumpeters of freedom locates the origins of the radical press tradition in South Africa, then looks at the development of the two publications to which Ruth devoted most of her time: The Guardian/New Age and Fighting Talk. Writing left focuses on First's writing in connection with three campaigns: the farm labour and the potato boycott, womens' passes and the bus boycotts. These chapters are not a history of these campaigns, but an analysis of the influence on them of First's joumalism. Word wars is about the Treason Trial of 1956. The contention here is that the trial, in which First was one of the 'chief co-conspirators ', not only put the Congress Alliance in the dock, but was about the definition of three words: communism, violence and treason. In many ways it was a trial of the language of the Left, the tools of First's trade. Shifting focus looks at the period after Sharpeville and the 1960 State of Emergency. It considers the shift in First's writing necessitated by greater political oppression, a banning order and her exploration of the writing of books. Chapter 12 considers the massive setback to the Congress Alliance of the Rivonia Trial and the tactical errors which led the Congress leadership to the conclusion that armed struggle would succeed at that point in time. The final chapter is about First's detention, and her perceived personal defeat which resulted in her attempted suicide. The Postscript looks at First's successful attempts to come to terms with both a political and personal defeat. The work effectively ends, however, with her departure from South Africa.
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- Date Issued: 1992