SACP calls for strike intervention

South African Communist Party deputy secretary-general, Jeremy Cronin, has called for Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana to intervene in the eight-week-long security guard strike. The minister said earlier that he was powerless to intervene. Independent Online reports that the SACP central committee called on all parties, and especially the employers, to move immediately to good faith negotiations and also called on the department of labour to urgently consider intervening. SACP secretary general Blade Nzimande said the party was not inclined to dismiss lightly the claim that some of the violence may be the work of agents provocateurs deliberately planted into marches