On cold day in June, hundreds of young and elderly villagers in Mqanduli, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, some with faces painted with white clay and others smoking pipes, joined members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) who wore heavy green jackets to keep the cold at bay. Among them were Joseph Mathunjwa, Amcu’s fearless president, lawyers Dumisa Ntsebeza and James Nichol, the latter a pro bono lawyer from Britain. Mathunjwa, and his union members, were back at the village to fulfil a promise made to the Marikana families. Upon seeing desperation at the funeral of Noki in this village, Mathunjwa vowed to build 37 three-bedroom houses for the families of the deceased.
Mathunjwa tried in vain to stop the fatal charge of his men towards police during the Marikana massacre. He often wept at his failure. Now five years after the biggest incident of police brutality since democracy in South Africa, where 34 miners lost their lives, 78 were wounded and 250 sent to jail, Amcu returned to Mqanduli, to rejoice with the family of Noki, known as the man with the green blanket.
It took five years of struggle to raise the money to build the houses; Noki’s family was the first to benefit. The face-brick house stands among scattered mud houses standing on the side a hill next to a dusty road. Poverty is palpable in these parts of the Eastern Cape; as a result many young men are attracted to the mines, far from home, even before finishing school.
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Mathunjwa, before cutting the ribbon to the house and handing it over to the 30-year-old widow of Noki, spoke harshly about youth who drop out of school and run to the mines. He did not spare the government either.
“If our government, led by the ANC, could change the economic policies that will retain our raw material and create jobs for the youth – there’s nothing we cannot do on our own here in Africa with the resources that God blessed us with – this unemployment rate of 27%, we can reduce it to zero. In Germany, about 4.3% of people are unemployed. I don’t see a reason why we cannot do the same,” says Mathunjwa.
“All other nations come here to amass wealth and they leave us with nothing. We have turned into consumers; we are incapable of producing things for ourselves. No, Africans let’s be liberated in our minds. There’s not a politician that is going to liberate you… Look at East and West Germany right now. Those people spent many years in wars but see them today, when you enter Berlin it is so advanced because of our platinum and economy to enrich other nationalities,” says the scathing Mathunjwa.
Mathunjwa said we cannot be a nation that is too dependent on the government. It’s a shame that 17 million people in South Africa are beneficiaries of government grants, he said.
The villagers remembered Noki as their hero. He was merciless on the football field, something that his lanky 15-year-old son got from him. To the miners who sang revolutionary songs about him, Noki was the fearless leader. Mathunjwa told the villagers that Noki didn’t die in vain as the union was close to achieving the minimum wage of R12,500 ($960) the miners demanded in 2012.
“Mambush was a hero. I am proud of him. I was very angry at first but over time I have come to peace with what happened to my husband and his fellow unionists who died in the hands of police,” says Mathapelo Lekoetje, Noki’s customary wife, who’s a clerk at the mine hospital in Carletonville, outside Johannesburg.
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Lekoetje, who is left with five children to raise, says she could not grieve for long after her husband died. Noki, who would have turned 35 this year, worked as an underground miner for a platinum mine in Rustenburg. He was driven by the pittance he earned to join the strike that ended his life.
“Amcu has been fabulous to the families. Since the tragic death of my husband, and throughout the <a href="http://www.marikanacomm.org.za/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Farlam Commission</a>, we never felt alone,” says Lekoetje.
“The spirit of Mambush lives on far and wide, beyond the boundaries of South Africa. His name is known in trade unions in many, many countries. I have spoken at meetings in the United States of America, Germany, Switzerland, France, Denmark and many other countries about the atrocity and murders of Marikana miners. But each time I speak, my mind is directed towards that courageous man who sought a peaceful solution to the tragedy of Marikana and that man was Mambush. His spirit lives on, his light is a beacon to all those burdened,” says Nichol.
“In 10 years’ time, when your children ask what happened in Marikana, you will tell them about Mambush. And in 50 years when the grandchildren ask what happened in Marikana, you will tell them about Mambush. And in 100 years’ time when their children ask what happened in Marikana, you will tell them about Mambush. Mambush is now part of South African history and his name will live on forever,” says Nichol.
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Since the Marikana massacre, Nichol has been traveling between Britain and South Africa representing Amcu for free. He was part of the team of lawyers representing the union at the Marikana Commission of Inquiry, led by retired judge Ian Farlam.
“I have tried leaving South Africa and going back to London, but each time I get money I find myself booking an airline ticket back to Johannesburg and then to the Eastern Cape to meet my African family,” says Nichol.
Houses will help. It is all the Marikana families have for now. The families hope they will get justice too.

Marikana: A Promise Kept Through Tears Of Grief

The Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg was an apt choice for these talks for two reasons: firstly, Boksburg is a mining town built on the digging of gold; secondly, it is a venue for boxing and home to former world heavyweight champion Gerrie Coetzee. The Friday before gold mining pay talks began in earnest, on June 16, there was a boxing tournament at Birchwood. At least the Friday fight night was fought under Queensberry rules.
The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) led with its left. It may be merely the second largest union, representing 30% of the 93,000 gold miners compared to the majority National Union of Mineworkers’ 54%, but what it lacks in numbers it makes up for in chutzpah.
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“We are a serious union,” says Manzini Zungu, the spokesman for Amcu.
When the major gold producers in South Africa, the leading gold producer in Africa, made one of the best opening offers in history on July 6 – of between 7.8% and 12.96% – Amcu was the first to despise it. To rub salt in the wounds, in rejecting the offer, Amcu presented slides showing the salaries of the top mining bosses, of up to $1.7 million a year, juxtaposed with the salaries of underground miners.
“That was brilliant,” says an official from a rival union as he emerged impressed from the negotiating room.
“You can’t compare a CEO to a man who carries a shovel,” scoffed another.
Amcu put pressure on the gold employers to make a counter offer two days later. The employers stuck to their guns and Amcu deadlocked on July 8, taking a dispute to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), the independent arbitration body. It was enough bad news to drive the value of mining stocks down by 10% on the day on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
The next step is a strike and Amcu proved, in 2014, this is not too difficult. In that year, the union took the platinum mines out for an unprecedented five-month stoppage that cost more than $2 billion.
“The problem is the employers fear Amcu,” says a former member of the NUM negotiating team.
The rest of the unions, NUM, UASA and Solidarity, stayed at the negotiating table but are equally disgruntled.
How the gold employers are going to close the gap, with pay demands that go up to 80% from NUM to 100% from Amcu, is anyone’s guess.
The employers plead poverty. Figures released by the Chamber of Mines show the demands would load R16.5 billion ($1.32 billion) onto the wage bill of South African gold mines. The wage bill, in 2014, was R23.5 billion ($1.88 billion), making up 55% of gold mining costs.
“If all of the wage demands are granted, nearly all of the mines in South Africa would be under water. It could be the end of the gold mining industry,” warned Elize Strydom, the chief negotiator for the employers.
The employers also set great store by what it calls social compact – a package of pensions and welfare benefits to complement the pay. Like the opening offer, this too fell on stony ground.
“We don’t want packages, we want pay,” says David Sipunzi, the general secretary of NUM.
The employers also tried to link a pay deal to profit share if the gold price goes up. They promise there will be bonuses if profit margins, after costs have been deducted, stay above 6%. Clearly, there will be talk about retrenchments and pay cuts if profits turn to losses.
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“Will the bosses take a pay cut?” asks one of the more cynical officials at the talks.
The unions’ argument is simple. They want to use these talks to close the pay gap between the boardroom and the bottom of the damp shafts, miles underground where the gold is.
You could argue that a secretary answering a telephone in an air-conditioned office in Johannesburg earns twice as much as a miner who spits and sweats in the clammy heat, more than four kilometers underground for as little as $600 a month.
Amcu and NUM also want to close what they call the “apartheid gap” in pay – a legacy from the old days when the cheap labor of black miners made vast profits for both the mines and the state.
“We don’t fear the threat of retrenchments made by the employers, they are retrenching at Doornkop (a Harmony Gold mine) as we speak,” says Sipunzi.
Analysts have warned rising costs and falling productivity in the gold mines could cost the industry 20,000 jobs before the end of the year. The number of workers in the gold mines has fallen from 180,000, 10 years ago, to a mere 120,000, an alarming decline in a nation that has mined nearly half of all of the gold in the world.
The only jab in the eye for Amcu so far is its dismal attempt to boost its numbers represented at the talks. It claimed an extra 6,500 members, but independent auditors say 6,000 of those could not be verified. A source among the employers says of the 1,000 members claimed at AngloGold Ashanti, a mere seven turned out to be true.
What is clear is that whichever of the two main unions, Amcu and NUM, is seen to get the best deal in these talks will attract a legion of new members to their corner. Seconds out.

Gloves Off In Gold

In a continent desperate for jobs, it is depressing to watch a once shining industry commit suicide. By May, it had cost the industry around $1.5 billion in production and a lot of credibility in the world market.
As I write, the platinum industry in South Africa has been on strike for nearly four months. More than 70,000 workers at Lonmin, Angloplats and Implats, which produce 40% of the world supply of platinum, are idle. The industry has all but closed for business thanks to an unsightly game of poker between the management and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu). The last time South African mines were idle for this long was during the Rand Revolt of 1922 when striking white miners fought soldiers through the streets of Johannesburg over plans to replace them with cheaper, black miners.
Nearly a century later, Amcu, the union representing the great-grandchildren of those black miners, wants the minimum wage to be more than doubled to R12,500 – that is around $1,200 a month. It called the strike on January 23 and is not going to call it off until the magic number is reached. In many ways, the survival of Amcu – which is trying to eclipse the old school National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) – hinges upon securing this demand.
The employers say no way. Wages make up more than half of platinum mining costs and the mines say they can’t afford it; they offer 9% and no more. The word in the industry is that the employers see this as a showdown and will not budge. Other employers in gold and coal look on nervously, fearing similar wage demands from their workers should the platinum employers cave in.
Amcu risks an exodus of its new found membership if it backs down.
It is a staring competition where there is only one certainty – the platinum industry will emerge much smaller and weaker. The analysts are talking about 20,000 job losses before the end of the year, even if the dispute is settled soon, with thousands more to follow. The employers will close marginal shafts and whole operations could shut up shop.
What a pity. For years, platinum has been the blue-eyed boy of the South African mining industry. It earned high prices on the world spot market. The advantage platinum enjoys over gold is that it is actually used and consumed, rather than sitting on the shelf of a bank vault. It goes into catalytic converters in cars, helps keep the air clean and is valuable in jewelry. This means it has always enjoyed better prices than gold.
But it appears the boom times for platinum may be over. The employers have drawn a line in the sand and will try to salvage what is left of the industry when this dispute is over.
Funnily enough, the strike has not had the drastic effect on price that many feared. The spot price appears to have remained fairly stable, despite the fact that this damaging strike has taken more than a million ounces out of the market.
Some analysts even believe that this strike will help getting supply and demand back into equilibrium. Oversupply was one of the big issues last year, as the car industry slowed down, and there were stockpiles built up, hence the fairly constant price. These stockpiles are running down, as the strike wears on, and employers are already warning customers that a dearth is on the way.
Job cuts are inevitable in platinum. The industry may be able to right itself ahead of the next spike in platinum demand.
But the damage to the image of the industry is likely to be deep and long term. Foreign investors will view the labor unrest with distaste and caution. The strike is likely to make any investor think twice before putting money into South African mining. It will also damage South Africa’s reputation as a solid supplier of platinum.
The South African government appeared ineffectual in its attempt to intervene and solve the dispute. In the run up to the elections, it appeared to have forgotten about the king sized problem of a shutdown of the platinum industry all together. Now it is re-elected for another five years, surely this is a time for action.

No Winners In The Battle Of Platinum

The hard boiled trade unionist sat and wept before journalists as he told of his last attempt to save some of the 44 lives—including two police officers, lost in a violent and bloody week at one of South Africa’s biggest and most troubled platinum mines.
For a week in August more than 3,000 workers protested on top of Wonderkop Hill around two kilometers from the gates of Marikana Mine, in Rustenburg 122km north west of Johannesburg. Almost the entire workforce of 30,000 people downed tools in support of more pay for the rock drillers, who carry out the hardest and most dangerous work for the least pay.
The president of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), Joseph Mathunjwa, recalled the last few minutes before angry strikers rushed the police.
“Please leave this place; they are going to kill you… I kneeled there, I tried to plead with them… They said to me they think it’s safe to be on the mountain. ‘If we have to be killed let the police come and kill us… We want money that can keep our families going’ [they said],” Mathunjwa says.
Mineworkers in North West’s Lonmin Platinum mine began striking on August 10 for salary increases from an estimated R4,500 ($540) to R12,500 ($1,500). Many have blamed rivalry between AMCU and the biggest trade union, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), for the tension that led to the fatal shooting.
AMCU denies this. It says the union was asked to intervene on August 13 and was merely doing its job.
“I never thought that the history of the Sharpeville massacre would happen in 2012, in a democratic society,” said Mathunjwa.
AMCU voiced their frustrations with their organization being wrongfully charged as orchestrating the massacre. Mathunjwa argued that they were a recognized union in some sections at Lonmin and had a membership of 7,000.
“Why involve violence now?”
Eddie Majadibodu, the head of bargaining for the NUM, saw the shootings and how police dispersed strikers in the aftermath on the following day to prevent more violence.
“The NUM wants a full public inquiry to determine exactly what happened,” he says.
It is one of the few issues upon which both unions agree.
The ministry of police spokesperson, Zweli Mnisi, says the matter has been a brewing labor issue, employee versus employer. The police were called in to retain order as the constitution does not call for barbaric behavior, he said. Two police officers were killed on the first day that violence struck, he says that the workers were in possession of illegal arms are and dared the cops saying: “You dare us, we won’t move. If you want war, we’ll give you war.”
“From our side it’s not the duty of the police to be labor brokers,” he says.
Police confirmed that 44 people had died on the night of August 16 when police first used water cannon and then bullets to stop a rushing crowd.
“The [Independent Police Investigative Directorate] IPID, who police the police, are onsite to determine who fired the first shot,” he says.
Lonmin chairman, Roger Phillimore, said: “We are treating the developments around police operations this afternoon [August 17] with the utmost seriousness. The South African Police Service (SAPS) have been in charge of public order and safety on the ground since the violence between competing labor factions erupted over the weekend, claiming the lives of eight of our employees and two police officers. It goes without saying that we deeply regret the further loss of life in what is clearly a public order rather than labor relations associated matter.”
Workers at Marikana risked dismissal by ignoring an ultimatum from Lonmin, the world’s third largest platinum producer, to return to work by August 17. President Jacob Zuma cut short a regional SADC conference, held in Maputo, Mozambique, to return home so he could visit Marikana.
As the sun went down on the day after the killings a group of women gathered around Wonderkop Hill and wept for their lost men.
“You have stolen our husbands, you have stolen our brothers,” shouted one distraught woman at police.
Only an inquiry will tell us how this happened.

Tag: AMCU

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No Winners In The Battle Of Platinum

A Week Of Bloody Shame