Quotes of the Day

Annual wage negotiations in South Africa are usually rowdy affairs. But this year's haggling has been more heated — and violent — than for years. Security guards, who earn about $380 a month for 12 hour shifts, six days a week, want an 11% pay increase and have been striking for weeks. The protests have often turned violent; guards have thrown more than a dozen strikebreakers to their deaths from trains and a rally through Cape Town last week turned into a riot with shops and cars being smashed and looted, and police firing rubber bullets.

At the same time, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (cosatu), the biggest umbrella group for South African unions and officially an ally of the ruling African National Congress (a.n.c.), called a strike last week to protest unemployment and poverty. The one-day strike, which was peaceful, closed down some of the country's biggest mines, affected car manufacturers, beer giant South African Breweries and supermarkets, and cost the country an estimated $300 million.

Though the economy grew at a healthy 5% last year, unemployment in South Africa is officially just below 30%, but believed to be closer to 40% and millions of people still live in squalor. President Thabo Mbeki condemned the violence on the trains and in Cape Town. "There is absolutely nothing that entitles anyone to engage in the violence we have seen," Mbeki told parliament. "If we allow it to continue we will have anarchy in the country. It's wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong."

But workers say that their frustration is increasing. They criticize the government for what unionists describe as pro-big business policies. "The anger hinges on inequality," says cosatu spokesman Patrick Craven. "Feelings are particularly acute when we hear that the economy is booming but we don't see any of that ourselves."

• SIMON ROBINSON
• Ordinary South Africans see the country's economy booming but grow impatient as to when the boom will come their way