Vol. 76/No. 36      October 8, 2012

Cops used rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas against striking workers at an Anglo-American Platinum (Amplats) mine Sept. 19 in Rustenburg. “We are not tolerating any illegal gatherings,” police Capt. Dennis Adriao told Business Day Live. That same day, Anglo-American, the largest platinum producer in the world, claimed its mines were up and running. But three days later Amplats admitted that fewer than 20 percent of 26,000 workers had returned to work.

By Sept. 24 Business Day Live reported that Amplats was holding wage talks with the strikers. The workers, members of the National Union of Mineworkers, have elected their own negotiating committee outside of the official union structures to press their demand to increase wages to 17,000 rand (about $2,000) a month.

Workers have also gone on strike at two of South Africa’s biggest gold-mining companies. While a strike at its KDC East mine ended in August, workers at Gold Fields’ KDC West mine went on strike in early September. Workers are on strike at Anglo Gold Ashanti and Samancor Chrome.

Union officials have opposed the wildcat strikes, saying that workers need to go through the procedures outlined in collective bargaining agreements, to no avail.

At Lonmin workers ignored pleas from both the NUM and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union to stop the strike and negotiate later.

In the end delegates selected by the Lonmin workers joined the negotiations brokered by the government’s Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration that included representatives of the company and officials from the main unions at the mine.

“We didn’t know what we were walking into,” mediation commission director Nerine Kahn told the Mail and Guardian. “I like to say that it was like people who are invited to a party and some come in black tie and some come in rags. They come to a different party expecting different results.”

South African capitalists are worried that the example of the workers “in rags” from Lonmin will keep spreading to other mines and beyond.

According to the Statistics SA department, less than 42 percent of households in South Africa have running drinking water; 40 percent do not have flush toilets. Officially some 80 percent of households have electricity, but in many mining communities, like the settlements around the Lonmin mine, most do not.

The price of food has skyrocketed. The price of corn meal, a key staple, has increased from 34 to 56 percent in the last year alone.

On top of these conditions, miners face the companies’ disregard for safety. There were 123 mine deaths on the job in 2011 and as many as half of all gold miners have contracted silicosis from dust in the mines.

An editorial in the Sept. 24 Daily News complained that the Lonmin wage agreement set “an unhealthy precedent” and opened the door to “individual settlements and chaos.” Business Day Live called the deal “a moral hazard” that “cannot be underestimated.”
 
 
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