Please, i need help

i am sitting in a tight position at work and i need some clarity about what to do and what the consequences and benefits would be of any action i could take.

I'll try to summarize where possible to try and avoid turning this into an essay :P

I'm currently employed at a computer shop and have been here for about 2 and a half years, the owners of this company have no regard for procedure or law in any way, if possible i would leave or resign, but i live in a small town and there isn't much work in my area

things of note in the company are as follows:

1.) tax, uif, irp5 etc. are alien concepts, i earn R7k a month and as i understand it i need to pay tax, when i asked my boss about this is, he replied by asking me if i wanted to earn less money

2.) there are no contracts. i don't really have to comment on this one, not a single employee has a contract

3.) 2 of the employees are considered temporary employees and get paid daily R150 each, even though the one has worked there for longer than 8 months and the other for longer than a year. when the employee asked the boss about becoming permanent and having his salary paid at the end of the month he was degraded regarding the quality of his work and whether he deserved to work at all, to the other he simply said that he won't because there is no benefit for him, if he appointed him, he would have to give him benefits like leave days and that doesn't suit him

at this stage at least 2 employees want to take legal action, but i don't know what the ramifications would be. i'm considering joining solidarity and asking them for advice, but i'm pretty sure that they would just like to go all out against him, regardless of whats in my best interest. I've been told by a few people that the labor department or ccma would close the shop if they heard about this, and i would get a lot of money from suing him, I'm not really interested in that, i'm more concerned with the fact that if they close the shop, I'm sitting without a job. that's not even considering what the tax man would do to me, because from what i understand i am liable for all outstanding taxes

please any advice, information, or general help would be greatly appreciated

PS: i'm not against profiting through this, but my primary concern is being able to have a roof over my head