South Africa has always had strikes this time of year as employers and unions renegotiate employment contracts. However, I am not sure if it is just me, but it seems as if we have had a rather ludicrous strike season this year.

We have had our usual strikes – there was the mineworkers who seem to strike every year, the municipal strike, Metrorail (our train service), the bus strike, prison warden strike, and talk of a tax worker strike, Telkom, the post office is still on strike, the workers contructing our 2010 Soccer World cup projects wanted higher pay, and more that I can’t even remember.

There have been quite a few more unusual ones that has stood out in my mind.

First there was the doctors strike. It was an illegal strike, but doctors have just become fed up with being paid a pittance and expected to work in abysmal conditions. They were demanding up to 50% increases, while government was refusing to budge. Then when they striked, they fired close to 300 of them, only having to rehire them all, as South Africa has a huge shortage of medical staff, due to all our doctors leaving for better pay and conditions in other countries. Out of all the strikes, I actually supported this one.

There was the taxi strike. They were striking because government is implementing better public transport systems like the Bus Rapid Transport system, and they cannot handle a little bit of competition, so they choose to make everyone’s a life more miserable than they already do (you can only understand this when you have had to fight with taxis on the road who are a law unto themselves).

Then, there was an illegal protest by the national defence force. It got so bad that the police force were having running battles with the defence force in from of the Union buildings in Pretoria. I think it is just a little bit scary when a group of trained soldiers start running amok.

Now also the traditional healers are protesting. They are demanding recognition by medical aids and the medical council. Just a brief description of a traditional healer – they claim to have the ability to talk to your ancestors, divine the future, and heal you using ‘muti’, which are essentially herbal remedies, some of which work, and others I am a little doubtful of.

I wonder if the next group to strike will be the politicians saying that their expensive cars are not expensive enough, or Eskom to demand more money to cover their huge losses. Things can’t get any more crazy than they already are!

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