Five years ago this week 44 people were killed in the course of an industrial dispute at a platinum mine in South Africa’s North West Province owned by Lonmin. It became known as the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marikana massacre</a>.
For many observers, Marikana was a turning point in the presidency of Jacob Zuma – who came to power in 2009 – and in the history of democratic South Africa. Even more so, it gave an early indication of the abuse of state power that’s been the hallmark of the Zuma government.
Thirty-four miners were shot dead by members of the South African Police Service in a single day, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012" target="_blank" rel="noopener">16 August 2012</a>. Seventeen were gunned down by heavily armed members of police tactical response teams as they left the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057070.2016.1223477?scroll=top&amp;needAccess=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">small hill (or koppie)</a> they’d been occupying. Others died at the hands of the police in the course of a brutal mopping up operation that followed.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/08/16/marikana-promise-kept-tears-grief/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marikana: A Promise Kept Through Tears Of Grief</a>
Five years on, and two years after the official <a href="http://www.marikanacomm.org.za/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Farlam Commission of Inquiry</a> into the Marikana tragedy, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/08/south-africa-five-years-on-marikana-victims-still-wait-for-justice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">no-one has been held to account</a>. Ministers have moved to new portfolios, police commanders have retired on ample pensions, or been <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/riah-phiyega-leaves-the-police-today-glad-she-ran-the-course-9708513" target="_blank" rel="noopener">replaced </a> in a blaze of litigation.
<h2>Lack of accountability</h2>
Only last week Zuma survived a vote of no confidence in parliament in the wake of a series of scandals. These included compelling evidence that he and his government are in thrall to the influential <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-03-24-00-the-gupta-owned-state-enterprises" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gupta family</a>.
Zuma’s reputation as the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-08-08-motion-of-no-confidence-teflon-zuma-survives-but-vote-closer-than-expected/#.WZK6fraQy70" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Teflon President”</a> – able to shrug off charges of everything from bribery to rape and allowing the South African state to be <a href="http://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“captured” by the Guptas and their acolytes</a> – dates back well beyond 2012. But, when it comes to Marikana, Zuma is not the only one with non-stick credentials.
In March this year, the country’s <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/20/Department-Independent-Police-Investigative-Directorate-IPID" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Independent Police Investigative Directorate</a>, the police oversight body, announced that it had identified <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/72-cops-to-be-charged-over-marikana-20170319-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">72 police officers to face charges</a>. These ranged from murder to perjury and defeating the ends of justice. Since then, no further action has been taken.
Important though this is, the responsibility for the massacre doesn’t stop at those who pulled the triggers. At the outset of the Farlam Commission’s public hearings, <a href="http://www.incwajana.com/dali-mpofu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dali Mpofu</a>, counsel for the miners injured at Marikana, blamed many of the deaths on <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2014-07-30-toxic-lonmin-police-collusion-blamed-for-marikana-massacre" target="_blank" rel="noopener">‘toxic collusion’</a>between the police and the mining company Lonmin.
As the inquiry progressed, Mpofu and others made strenuous efforts to blame Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy president of South Africa for the bloody denouement of 16 August. At the time Ramaphosa was a shareholder and non-executive director of Lonmin as well as a member of the ruling <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/officials/national-executive-committee-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ANC’s National Executive Committee</a>.
The commission itself uncovered evidence that collusion went some way beyond the police commanders and Lonmin executives on the ground. At a special briefing two days before the massacre the police commissioner for the North West province, Lieutenant General Miriam Mbombo, told a senior Lonmin executive that police were planning to move in to “kill” the strikers’ protest.
Mbombo revealed that she was acutely aware of the influence wielded by Ramaphosa. She also admitted being alive to the risk of allowing Julius Malema, who had been expelled as leader of the ANC’s Youth League, to make political capital out of the dispute.
Based on the transcript of this briefing, the Commission found that both Mbombo and the then National Commissioner of police, General Riah Phiyega, were complicit in raising political factors in their discussions about <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/marikana-report-1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">policing in Marikana</a>. It found these discussions to be “inappropriate” and inconsistent with the constitutional requirement that policing should be conducted in an impartial and unbiased manner.
The Commission also determined that the fatal decision to forcibly remove the striking miners from the koppie they were occupying was taken by Mbombo and not by tactical commanders with expertise in public order policing. It was then endorsed at an extraordinary session of the South African Police Service’s national management forum late on 15 August.
The commission did not find a direct link between anyone in political authority having ordered the police to take action. It did, however, conclude that the decision to remove the strikers from the koppie was at least partly the consequence of the senior police officials feeling the need to act and to be seen to act.
This idea that the police commanders at Marikana did not need to be told what to do, or how to do it, is consistent with the social theorist Steven Lukes’ three-dimensional view of power and the ability of the powerful to secure the compliance of those they dominate without either making decisions or giving orders. The generals knew what had to be done to end a costly and politically damaging protest. They knew that it had to be done without further delay, and, if necessary, with the use of force. The result, as we now know, was the loss of 34 lives.
The way in which power, subtly but with far reaching consequences, was used at Marikana may also tell us something about how it’s used in contemporary South Africa more generally to control, perhaps even to capture, not just the police but other state institutions far beyond the criminal justice system. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/bill-dixon-137304" rel="author">Bill Dixon, </a>Professor of Criminology, University of Nottingham
Originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>
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The Misery Commission

What the lack of accountability for Marikana says about Zuma’s government

Africa’s biggest platinum industry faces one of the most bruising years in its history. Unions and management have drawn battle lines for pay talks and a cloud of question marks hangs over the mining laws – dual uncertainty that could deter foreign investors from putting money in a country that produces 70% of the world’s platinum.
In July, pay talks for a new one-year deal began. Unions for 130,000 workers in South African platinum mines, sat down with the big three: AngloPlats, Implats and Lonmin. They are likely to prove tricky and drag on for weeks. The majority union, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), wants a 15% pay rise; the second largest, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), wants 20% across the board. Both unions are eyeing the recovering platinum price nosing above $1,000 an ounce for the first time in years. In August 2011, it was over $1,900.
<div id="attachment_5133" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5133" class="size-medium wp-image-5133" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Peter-Leon-017-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Peter Leon</div>
Demand for platinum, thanks to jewellery and automotive manufacturers, rose 10% in the first quarter of this year, according to the World Platinum Investment Council, while supply dropped 11%. It promises profit for South African mines if they can keep costs down; wages make up almost half of costs.
Amcu has 61% of the membership at AngloPlats, 62% at Implats and 82% at Lonmin. It holds the aces and will play a mean game for a minimum wage of R12,500 (around $860) a month. This wage has been the rallying call from Amcu ever since the bitter Marikana strike of August 2012. At the announcement of its demands in July, FORBES AFRICA questioned R12,500, saying it should be more like R20,000, taking into account four years of inflation.
“If we say R20,000 for the lowest paid, the employers are going to run away so we will go for R12,500 and work up from there,” says, the president of Amcu and part-time preacher, who appeared bullish and ready for action.
“We are applying for a pay rise here, not a strike. If the employers apply for a strike we will give it to them.”
The platinum employers are likely to be a tough nut to crack; inflation, at around 6%, is on their side. They are also struggling against years of falling commodity prices and productivity. On the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, AngloPlats shares lost two thirds of their value last year and Lonmin, kept afloat by a shareholders’ bailout in 2015, lost 99%.
Aside from the industrial problems, South Africa faces many more months of uncertainty over the country’s mining laws. Amendments to the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act – which governs mining – have spent four years going back and forth through Parliament; questions have been raised over the constitutionality of the amendments. Investors take a dim view of plans to make resources – like iron and coal for the steel industry – designated minerals under the law. That would mean miners accepting government prices and maybe having to ask permission to export. This could lead to a trade law complaint at the World Trade Organization (WTO). China suffered a WTO ruling against it recently in a similar case concerning rare earth.
Then there are concerns about the discretion the law hands to the minister, giving him the power to cancel mining licences and prosecute.
“It is open to discretion, with unclear rules, which makes it very difficult to invest with that level of uncertainty and that is the long and short of it,” says Peter Leon, a mining lawyer with Herbert Smith Freehills, at a briefing in Johannesburg in June.
“We are going to a third rewrite without solving the problems of the first two.”
The bill is on its way back through the legislature and a number of bodies, including the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa. Leon and his colleagues say the chiefs came up with one of the best ideas yet – an independent body to allocate the state-owned mineral rights.
With Parliament adjourned for the August 3 municipal elections, mining experts fear it could be well into next year before South Africa’s mining code is fixed. Investors seek stability and regulatory certainty; with every passing month there is a risk more of them will turn away.

Platinum Blues

August 16 2012. Thirty-four miners, mostly employed by Lonmin, on strike for a wage hike, were shot and killed by South African police in Marikana in Rustenburg, South Africa.
The men who died left behind wives and children who have suffered both pain and poverty in their loss.
FORBES WOMAN AFRICA visited six young widows who have now relocated to Marikana to work and be their families’ sole bread-winners. Most of them are cleaners earning a little more than their husbands did, living in a hostel at the Vulindlela Training Institute (that trains miners). They all share the same anger at the cops who shot down their men and changed their lives forever.
Walking around Vulindlela, you soon realize most of those affected by the Marikana massacre are resident in this area. It is now a community of the inconsolable, as they go about their lives at work or at school, returning to neighbourly chats, and time alone reflecting their fate.
They speak in chaste isiXhosa and seSotho, languages tough for an average Johannesburg-born city dweller like me to comprehend. But their emotions convey more than any language can ever do, as these pictures that follow show.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-30795 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Nombulelo-099-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Nombulelo-099-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Nombulelo-099-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Nombulelo-099-600x903.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Nombulelo-099-681x1024.jpg 681w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Nombulelo-099.jpg 680w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
Double tragedy
When Lesotho-born Mathabile Monesa, 25, lost her husband Khanane Elias Monesa that fateful day in Marikana, she was pregnant. At the time, she was living with her in-laws in Lesotho and her husband was the sole provider to a family of nine.
There was more tragedy in store.
Weeks after his death, she was admitted to hospital and lost their unborn child, a son. Doctors put it down to stress and depression.
“It was painful knowing that our provider was killed, knowing that I now have to put food on the table for the family with the money I made from sewing,” says Monesa.
Monesa hopes the R12,500 ($900) the miners were fighting for will also be given to the widows in the future.
&nbsp;
Loved dearly, missed sorely
Just two rooms from Monesa’s, 35-year-old Nombulelo Ntongo from the Eastern Cape is on the phone with her seven-year-old daughter, who suffers epilepsy, and who she only sees during the Easter break and the December holidays.
Before losing her husband Bongani Nqongophele, she lived with her mother-in-law, daughter and five other family members in the Eastern Cape.
“After the death of Bongani, it was hard, our child was sick and I couldn’t take her to the doctor; she was small and epileptic and I couldn’t even buy food and clothes, nobody could take Bongani’s place because he was the only one who could take care of us,” she says.
Today, Ntongo sends money home to her mother-in-law for food and doctor fees, as well as for her daughter’s school uniform. Lonmin pays the school fees.
“If I had an alternative, I would leave this job and go back home. I’m not here because I want to, I’m here because I don’t have a choice; it is not nice living here and the child living back home.”
Nqongophele’s memory lives on. In Ntongo’s little bedroom are pictures and messages from her daughter pasted on the door. Nqongophele was loved dearly by his family.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-30793 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Masebolai-116-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Masebolai-116-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Masebolai-116-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Masebolai-116-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Masebolai-116.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
‘He was left to die’
Rebuselelitsoe Lefulebe, 26, from Lesotho and speaking Xhosa, can’t supress her incessant tears, even now, three years after her husband Bongani Mdze’s death in the Marikana massacre. She remembers the day like it was yesterday, when she was visiting him.
“He died upon arrival at hospital, he was left for more than an hour at the scene after he was shot; he was left to die; if he had received help, he would still be alive,” says Lefulebe.
Lefulebe recalls how Mdze had looked after his sister’s three children and his own child with his meager pay.
“Today, the children aren’t happy living with relatives back home; they tell me everything and mention things are not the same since daddy has gone.”
Mdze had applied and passed the test for a supervisor position. Had he been alive, Mdze would have earned more than Lefulebe does now.
&nbsp;
The mother far away
A few blocks away, we visit a mother of five, Nosakhe Nokamba. Today, she is her family’s only bread-winner. Currently living with two of her children, she sends money home to the care-taker to feed the three others who she also sends to school.
When her husband Ntandazo died, he was 36, leaving young children.
“It’s been hard around here, when I sit alone and think you know you are not at home and the only reason I’m here is because my husband left us, and now I’m separated from our children,” says Nokamba.
&nbsp;
‘Where is daddy?’
Twenty nine-year-old Nosihle Ngweyi is miner Michael Ngweyi’s widow. Before his death, Ngweyi lived with their two children in the Eastern Cape.
“The challenges I’m facing are the children. They ask questions I sometimes may not be able to answer. They would ask, ‘where is daddy? When is he coming home?’ I would respond by telling them not to ask that question again because daddy is not coming home,” says Ngweyi painfully.
She says after her husband’s death, she was left with a lot of responsibility and an incomplete house with only a fence. With the compensation she received after the tragedy, she built a two-room house and lived there.
Ngweyi’s therapy is school. She says after work she would rather go to school and learn and be busy, rather than dwell on the past.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-30794 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Mathabisile-042-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Mathabisile-042-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Mathabisile-042-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Mathabisile-042-600x903.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Mathabisile-042-681x1024.jpg 681w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Mathabisile-042.jpg 680w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
‘I have to sustain them’
Masebolai Liau was married to Janfeke Liau and they were both from Lesotho. Today, she lives far away from her village, her home and the cows and sheep she has left with care-takers she remunerates every month.
She knows not in what state her livestock is.
“I try but it’s hard. I do this because I have to sustain the people and the belongings my husband left. His family, our family, our farmers and the farm, he could do this all by himself,” she says.
Liau wishes for a support group so people can express their feelings and find comfort in each other’s pain.

Hill-054-bw

Wives.Widows. Survivors.

This year Lonmin, the world’s third largest platinum producer, will try to save its African business.
After a disastrous couple of years, the future of Lonmin hung in the balance in November as the platinum mining giant needed a $407-million bailout to keep going. It was the third capital raising in six years.
Wounded by declining platinum prices, electricity shortages, slow demand, and strikes, the company’s financial circumstances deteriorated sharply. To make matters worse, the company frittered away money.
“In the boom times around 2004 and 2005, Lonmin went and bought a ground in the Northern Province around the Plat Reef, a property called Akanani. Akanani was bought for almost a billion dollars. Today, in our books, it’s worth zero. So that billion dollars went down the drain,” admits Lonmin CEO, Ben Magara.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4358" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2014-Catalogue_Jay-Caboz-192-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Magara says a further billion dollars was wasted when Lonmin embarked on a failed mechanization program. The rock was too hard and shafts too narrow.
“To try and reverse all those challenges has needed even more money,” says Magara.
On the morning of November 19, Lonmin went cap in hand to its shareholders for an emergency capital injection. Prior to the meeting, other shareholders sold out of Lonmin. The share price went down from $8 in December 2010, to just 16c in November just before the meeting.
In London, Lonmin offered shareholders a 94% discount as part of its rebuilding plan. The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) saved the day by increasing its stake in Lonmin by 23% from 7%.
Even though the bailout was successful, 6,000 job losses are expected by September. Paul Theron, the CEO of asset management company, Vestact, reckons Lonmin’s shareholders are growing tired of bailouts.
“It’s a bit like SAA (South African Airways) where they say ‘this is one last bailout please’, but unfortunately that is exactly what happened in the past. The management team has raised additional funding in order to increase equity and to pay down debt, but then proceeded to run business in a way that didn’t result in a sustainable profitable scenario,” says Theron.
“No one anticipated that we would see this level of oversupply in the industry and this level of self-demand and this level of poor prices. A lot of people assumed that once the supply side started to calm down, there would be an immediate response in terms of higher platinum prices.”
Lonmin is hoping upon hope it can save its 106-year-old African operations and more than 30,000 jobs.

Lonmin Tries A Lazarus

“Welcome back,” said the sign at the end of the strike. This bitter dispute ended with smiles and handshakes under Christmas lights at the mine gate.
On June 25, across the platinum belt near Rustenburg in the North West province of South Africa, 120 kilometers north of Johannesburg, around 70,000 miners went back to work. The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) reached a wage settlement the day before with platinum producers Lonmin, Implats and Angloplats.
“It is our sincere hope that our companies, our industry, our employees and all stakeholders will never again have to endure the pain and suffering of this unprecedented strike period. None of us, nor the country as a whole, can afford repetition,” says Ben Magara, Lonmin CEO, after the union signed a three-year agreement.
At one of Lonmin’s mines in Marikana, hundreds of mineworkers walked in darkness to clock in. Their supervisors and bosses formed a guard of honor to welcome them back. But production was far away in the first weeks of the return. Miners were inducted and went through health checks before setting foot in the shafts.
“Previously, mining companies just put their workers back to work straight away. That’s not Lonmin, we are not here for the quick and short term solutions. We’re for a sustainable business with the interest of the person at heart,” says Mark Munroe, Lonmin’s mining division and safety head.
Lonmin says it could be six months before full production is reached.
Munroe says from the beginning of the strike, Lonmin invested in mine maintenance to protect the shafts from damage and keep ventilation working. Engineers have also been hard at work managing water underground.
“We shut down with the cognisance it will go on for a long while. In fact, we put extra mine support in place. We put plans in certain configurations so that we wouldn’t need so much maintenance and check-ins. All the water was stored,” says Munroe.
The separate agreements reached with each company are effective from July 1, 2013 for Amplats and Implats and Lonmin on October 1, and will run until June 2016. Employees with basic salaries less than $1,126 a month will receive a $94 increase over three years.
“This victory ushered a paradigm shift in the entire mining sector. This also shifts the media mindset that our demands were ridiculous,” says Amcu president, Joseph Mathunjwa, after signing the agreement.
Mathunjwa says they have established a task team that will look at worker share ownership. This means miners could own part of the mines they closed for five months.
Former Anglo American strategist, Clem Sunter, supports this.
Sunter says Kumba Iron Ore, a subsidiary of Anglo American, has an employee share ownership scheme which since December 2011 paid out gross dividends to employees of more than $56,000.
“The shares won’t stop strikes but they will reduce the odds that they will go on strike for a long time. It is a step towards a more inclusive economy,” he says.
“The worker shareholder scheme is a very good idea that needs to be encouraged because it could change their lives for the better. It will give workers a meaningful stake from the company revenue,” says Andrew Levy, a labor economist and consultant at Andrew Levy Employment.
Levy says if the workers wishes are granted, it will be prudent to familiarize them with economic literacy to understand the share price of their companies.
“Workers will think carefully about going on strike because they are directly benefitting in the economy,” he says.
The mine owners hope so.

Painful And Costly Strike Ends With Glee And Hope

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

On a dirt road, outside the mining shafts of Lonmin, 120 kilometers north west of Johannesburg there are 34 white crosses.
Days before the first anniversary of Marikana, miners ripped them up and threw them among the nearby rocks. The beating sun and biting wind eats at their enamel sheen.
A South African opposition party put up these crosses to commemorate the bloodbath. A year on, rock drill operator Siphiwe Booi, who has worked in the depths of Lonmin’s mine for 23 years, is tearing them down.
“The DA [Democratic Alliance] put these crosses up, not us [the miners]. It was a ploy to win votes. We are going to surround this hill with a fence and put up a headstone with all the names of those who fell. Us. The miners,” says Booi.
<div id="attachment_2111" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2111" class="size-medium wp-image-2111" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_8437-300x226.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="226" />Head of the Marikana Commission, Ian Farlam, leaves after postponing proceedings again</div>
In many ways the rise and fall of the crosses is one of the precious few manifestations of change in the post-Marikana world.
Miners, such as Booi, want justice rather than memorials, for the 34 miners who died on August 16, 2012, in a wildcat strike.
“I woke up that day to find the verdict of the wage negotiations. Little did I know, I was waking up to death. I remember the line of police shouting: ‘Media get back’. The police stepped forward in a line. Then the sound came: ta-ta-ta-ta. The next I saw was a man in a Bafana Bafana shirt dropping next to me,” says Booi.
He fumbles in his jeans and pulls out a cellphone. He points to a picture.
“This was my friend, my work colleague, that was August 16,” he says.
Booi feels nothing has changed since that day. He is also one of the many witnesses who stood in the hallway of the Farlam Commission, an hour-and-a-half drive from his home in Marikana West. The commission, in Centurion near Pretoria, was charged by President Jacob Zuma to find out who was to blame for Marikana.
On the same day Booi was pulling up the crosses, the families of mine workers and police alike rubbed shoulders, a world away, at the commission. They sat, ringed by cameramen, united by the need for closure. Among suits, laptops and lever arch files the truth is expected to emerge.
The commission has sent a year sifting through 12,000 pages of statements, inspections, video footage and evidence. The end, expected on October 13, is nowhere in sight. The commission has not moved at the speed he wished, admits Ian Farlam, head of the commission and retired Supreme Court judge, days before the anniversary.
The delay has been hard for Lizy Maubane, sister of one of the policemen who was killed on August 13 2012.  Since his death she has been depressed, at times suicidal. All she wants is closure.
Accusations of unequal funding have also delayed the commission, admits Farlam.
Advocate Dali Mpofu, who represents the injured miners, walked out of the commission after he was not paid. The miners must pay R400,000 ($40,000) a month for Mpofu&#8217;s services. The tax payers collect a R36 million ($3.6 million) bill for the defense of the police.
Mpofu refuses to defend the miners until he has taken the matter to the South African Constitutional Court. Here, he hopes to be granted state funds.
The 12 parties at the commission are allowed to cross-examine each witness—testimony that has to be heard in several languages. This is an issue, says Farlam.
“With so many witnesses and cross-examinations it was inevitable that the process would not be rapid,&#8221; he says.
The good news is that the commission has been granted funds to install a simultaneous translation device, which will speed up the fact checking process, says Farlam.
In the interim, Farlam is eager to push through with proceedings, hoping a secret financial backer can pay Mpofu’s bill. A large scale walkout could spell disaster.
“I just want to say one thing to the government, please pay the lawyers,” says Booi.
The mining industry is also struggling, post Marikana. According to the Chamber of Mines, 60% of the gold mines in South Africa are unprofitable. Costs are rising amid the threat of more wildcat strikes. Even the time honored pay negotiations are in dispute and disarray.
For the miners, who sweat underground, the future of mining is a far away concept. They are too busy struggling to live. At the very least in Centurion, it’s the lawyers, wearing suits that cost more than a year’s wages in the mines, that have the job of unearthing the truth so that justice can be done.

Little Did I Know,  I Was Waking Up To Death

When you talk to Ben Magara, the fifth child in a family of nine children from rural Zimbabwe, you can’t help but think that the open and friendly person smiling at you may be just too nice to be taking on a tough and thankless job.
Magara takes up the role as CEO of the world’s third-largest platinum miner, Lonmin, on July 1, and a rocky road lies ahead.
Worker relations at Lonmin and across the South African platinum sector are a bubbling cauldron. On June 3, a National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) official working at Lonmin’s Western Platinum operation, 120km north west of Johannesburg was shot dead. It led to talk of a peacekeeping force for the mines, which would have been unthinkable just two years ago.
It is a sign of troubled times. There was mistrust even before the Marikana tragedy in August. Between August 11 and 16, clashes between police and striking workers led to the deaths of 44 miners. More than 70 people were injured and around 250 people were arrested.
A public inquiry into the deaths and the reasons why the strike had been so violent will continue this month. It will also ascertain why police, security guards and miners, who did not strike, were killed. The hearings are slow and findings may only emerge next year.
What seems clear from the inquiry, so far, is that a breakdown in NUM leadership and failure by unions to direct their members, may have contributed to the massacre. Government, police and mining companies are also likely to shoulder the blame.
Since August, the unpredictable South African mining industry has been plagued by wildcat strikes. At Lonmin, the majority of the unionized workforce belongs to the Associated Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), around 70%, according to management. AMCU has been around for some time, but last year came to the fore as a rival to NUM, which is accused of being out of touch with its members. At the platinum sectors two other major employers, Impala Platinum and Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), AMCU members also make up the majority of unionized employees, leaving NUM on the back foot.
This has made South Africa’s platinum mines a political battleground as NUM struggles to regain its power base. There is much on the line for both unions and the ANC. To a degree, the platinum sector wage talks that will be held in July will be as much about the politics of the country as they will be about miners looking for wage increases.
In May, Lonmin caught  up on lost production after last year’s violence, but lost even more production as infighting between NUM and AMCU supporters led to strikes. The company’s share price has fallen 33% year-on-year on the London Stock Exchange, where the company has its main listing.
“We have to make sure the assets are working optimally. We will be rising from a low base and need to keep the cash flow running,” says Magara.
Forty-six-year-old Magara is just as imposing now as when he was elevated to CEO of Anglo Coal South Africa seven years ago. He rises at 4AM to go to the gym and appears to have lost none of his verve and enthusiasm.
We meet at the Melrose Arch hotel, in Johannesburg. Magara is keen to talk about his hopes for Lonmin and the South African mining industry.
Magara says that the mining industry has to work together in communities around mines. And referring to a long running area of contention between miners and companies, he says the industry cannot merely apologize for silicosis. The debilitating lung disease can cause premature deaths. It is caused by crystalline silica dust inhaled by miners with inadequate protection. Today, the protection has improved and many of those suffering from the disease contracted it years ago. South African mining companies have been shying away from paying decent compensation to miners who contracted the disease.
“We have to deal with it,” he says.
Magara, who has a mining engineering degree from the University of Zimbabwe, acknowledges he will have his work cut out at Lonmin. His last job was executive head of engineering and capital projects at Amplats. He clearly knows the platinum business; while his job at Amplats was an executive one, at Lonmin the buck will stop with him.
Heads of resources companies in the 21st century need broad skills, it is no longer just about getting the ounces out of the ground, it also requires political poise.
“Everyone wants to have skin in the game,” says Magara.
He is a good communicator and as the quote above suggests he gives the impression that he is unlikely to be an immoveable object when it comes to negotiations. He knows his ability to communicate is a key attribute. Asked why he was selected as the person for the Lonmin job, he says much of his work at Amplats involved community relations. He had to help the company secure mining licenses.
At Amplats’ Mogalakwena mine, near Polokwane, two communities had to be relocated, often an uneasy task. When Magara took up his position with the company, the people were refusing to move. He went to the communities each week, meeting with 17 sub-committees to discuss their grievances.
“In six months we had the licence,” he says.
It is Magara’s view that on occasions mining companies may be too quick to revert to the law.
“Actually, it is about building relationships. It’s about respect,” he says.
Magara has always been close to the ground and early to rise. Back home, in Bikita, Masvingo, he would rise at 4AM to tend vegetables with his siblings and father, before heading off to school. In those days, Magara dreamed of being a bus driver.
Now as head of Lonmin, Magara steers a company with a market capitalization of $1.97 billion, albeit carrying significant debt, where he has to unite the divided. Already, as part of the South African Chamber of Mines collective bargaining process for wage talks in the gold and coal sector, NUM has tabled a demand of 60% for entry-level workers, with the overall demand about a 15% increase. Taking into account that unions aim high in wage negotiations, even an agreement to a fraction of these demands could prove ruinous. Wages make up half of mining costs.
Magara knows what he has to do with the operations at Lonmin.
“It’s all about efficiency… Lonmin has an excellent resource base,” he says.
That is just one aspect of what might be called the Lonmin success equation. If Magara steers the Lonmin bus onto the clear highway, he will have to have all the parties with “skin in the game” on board. Before he can settle into the driver’s seat, he will have to pull off quite a feat; an entente with labor that should lead to increased productivity and efficiencies.
Given the country’s history, NUM’s loss of footing and rivalry with AMCU, the trauma mining communities have suffered in the last year, it is a job that could drive an angel to drink.
Magara, though, as an African with significant experience in South Africa and Zimbabwe, some believe, is better equipped to negotiate this rough tough job than most.

A Rough Tough Job

The appointment of Ben Magara as CEO of Lonmin is the best decision made by the Lonmin board since they got rid of former CEO Brad Mills in September 2008. 
Mills, a self-confessed mechanization zealot, whose attempts to mechanize Lonmin’s mining operations were unsuccessful, stepped down by mutual consent and was soon followed by his chairman, John Craven, who retired in January 2009. 
Prior to this, Craven had famously declared Mills had the full support of himself and the Lonmin board for his policies. 
Mills was replaced by former chief financial officer Ian Farmer, who made major changes. He was making good headway when he resigned last year because of ill-health at precisely the same time the labor mayhem erupted at the group’s Marikana mine. 
Forty-six-year-old Magara is a highly-experienced mining engineer and, up until now, an Anglo American Corporation ‘lifer’. He worked for the group for 22 years, starting on the Wankie Colliery, now known as Hwange, in Zimbabwe, before coming to South Africa in 1994. 
He has occupied a string of top positions in Anglo’s coal division and is currently head of engineering and capital projects at Anglo American Platinum (Amplats). Magara will assume his position at Lonmin on July 1. 
The obvious question is: why is Magara leaving Anglo? You don’t have to look too far for the obvious answer. Sources indicate he was overlooked for the top position at Amplats, where last year Chris Griffith was appointed to replace former CEO Neville Nicolau. 
That’s the second time Magara has been overlooked for a top spot at Anglo, after being shifted into Amplats during a group management reshuffle in 2009, from his previous position as CEO of Anglo’s South African coal operations. 
Magara ticks all the boxes for the top position at Lonmin starting with his profession, because a criticism frequently voiced by analysts over mining company CEOs with a financial background, is that they don’t have the technical background to stop their mine managers pulling the wool over their eyes. 
But he also comes with plenty of experience in the areas that have been increasingly crucial to running a mining group in South Africa—black economic empowerment (BEE), safety and health issues and, arguably most important of all, dealing with politicians. 
In his position at Amplats Magara was responsible for bringing the group’s Unki platinum mine in Zimbabwe on stream. It was developed successfully and with little confrontation with the Zimbabwe government over indigenization. 
At Anglo Coal, Magara made his name running the New Denmark Colliery, where he introduced a new and highly successful safety program dubbed “Smarty”—an acronym for ‘safety must always relate to yourself’. He was also closely involved with the creation of Anglo Inyosi Coal—a BEE joint venture setting up a major domestic coal company, which holds the contract to supply the new Kusile power station being built by Eskom—South Africa’s national power supplier. 
Magara is also no stranger to crisis management, having been appointed head of the working group created to deal with the coal supply crisis early in 2008, when Eskom’s mismanagement of its coal stockpiles triggered a temporary shutdown of the South African power grid. 
He pulled no punches at the time declaring in an interview that: “Had Eskom placed orders for extra coal sooner, we could have done something about it sooner.” 
I singled out Magara in the 2010 edition of Rainmakers and Pot Stirrers: Your Guide to the 100 Most Influential People in SA’s Mining Industry as a man destined for bigger things. 
So I am not surprised to see him moving to the top slot at the world’s third largest platinum producer. He faces some huge challenges but I have no doubt he’s going to crack it

Ben on the button

Less than nine months after the shooting that shocked the world, conflict and tension are back at the richest mines in Africa. Thirty four miners were shot and killed, on August 16, following a week of wildcat strikes in Marikana, South Africa. Now the platinum belt is at war once again.
Miners at Lonmin downed tools for two days following the death of a union leader. The wildcat strike sent share prices tumbling a day after the company had posted positive results. Lonmin shares fell more than 10% over the two days while the rand retreated to a three-week low against the dollar, on fears that the unrest might spread across a sector that accounts for nearly half of South Africa’s foreign exchange earnings.
As an inquiry into the deaths of the 34 miners continued around 40kms away, in Rustenburg, hundreds of miners belonging to the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) marched to the infamous koppie, where the massacre occurred.
In 2012, the strike was over wages; this time around it was union rivalry. Amcu accused the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) of killing one of their office bearers. NUM denies it. Amcu, which has 70% of the membership at Lonmin, is demanding NUM leave their offices at the mine.
In the scorching heat of Marikana, it was a menacing site as miners chanted and danced their way to Wonderkop Stadium. More than 6,000 Amcu members chanted anti-NUM slogans and sang: “Who killed Steve, the man we loved so much”. This referred to the killing of 46-year-old Mawethu Steven, a shop steward who was shot dead while watching football at a tavern on May 11.
“If they have proof of us committing the killings then they must take it to the police,” says Lesiba Seshoka, spokesperson of NUM.
Following a marathon of meetings with Lonmin management, Amcu regional leaders addressed members at the packed stadium just after 4PM on a day where they vowed not to return to work until Lonmin management had kicked out NUM.
Addressing members, who were sitting on the grass using a loudspeaker system, an Amcu leader said the meeting they had attended yielded no results, as Lonmin management had declined to shut down NUM offices.
“The main issue at the meeting was our demand for the closure of NUM offices. After a meeting that started at 5AM, there’s nothing we’re bringing to you. What they [Lonmin] are saying is that they want you to go back to work,” says the leader.
Members reacted angrily and refused to go back to work at the 13 shafts that lay idle at Lonmin. Following deliberations, the leaders invited six workers from the 13 shafts, which have been affected by the strike to respond to the outcome of the meeting.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1829" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_6651-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
All six workers said their co-workers would not return to work because management and government are colluding with NUM. They added that they [Lonmin and government] are allowing their members to carry dangerous weapons to the shafts.
“The employer is clearly showing that he is sleeping with NUM and government. We are not going back to work until NUM vacates the mine,” he says.
Another miner refusing to go back to work said: “What management is saying is the same as farting under water—you can’t hear it”.
Three days later, miners made a U-turn and returned underground.
Meanwhile at Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) Rustenburg, the planned retrenchment of 6,000 miners is set to get ugly. Miners are prepared to fight back and embark on a massive strike that will halt production and send shockwaves around platinum shares.
Workers committee member Evans Ramokga says the company is not backing down on retrenchments, and workers had taken it upon themselves to fight. He says after mass meetings at different shafts, workers have decided to go on strike.
“Unions have done their part and negotiated on our behalves. Now the workers have decided to lead their cause. No one is happy about the retrenchments. Workers are saying if Amplats cannot run the mines they must leave and surrender the mines to another company that will save jobs,” says Ramokga.
Meanwhile on May 21, security guards fired rubber bullets at strikers at Lanxess mine, Rustenburg—one of the biggest suppliers of chrome ore. Five people were injured. The illegal strike was over bonuses.
Days of unrest lie ahead.

The Ghosts Of Marikana

The wise, white-haired lawyer who has seen a thousand trials, nodded sagely as he spoke about the shooting that shocked the world. He believes the South African Police Services and government will pay for the deaths of 34 miners at Lonmin’s Marikana mine in Rustenburg, north-west of Johannesburg.
London-based criminal defense lawyer James Nichol traveled 5,600 miles to Johannesburg for a couple of weeks, to give his services for free. Those weeks turned into months of shocking evidence.
<div id="attachment_1590" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1590" class="size-medium wp-image-1590" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSC_1167-300x235.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="235" />James Nichol</div>
“There is no question of self-defense here, these are police officers who had gone completely berserk and had fired into these people. And in some cases there’s evidence of a number of strikers who had been shot in the back,” says Nichol.
The hearings are revealing evidence on how the miners died and 78 others were injured. The week before, 10 people—six miners, two police officers and two Lonmin security guards—were killed as thousands went on a wildcat strike, over pay.
When Nichol saw the images of the Marikana massacre in his living room in England, it reminded the 67-year-old of the shock he felt about the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. On that fateful day in the township south of Johannesburg, the police shot into a crowd of around 5,000 unarmed anti-pass protestors, killing 69 people—many shot in the back—and wounding more than 200.
At 15 years of age, he took to the streets, in his hometown of Newcastle, calling to boycott the apartheid regime.
Nichol knows how hard mining is. He started work as a miner at 15, while his father worked at a coal mine from age 14 near Newcastle. Nichol senior died from dust related heart disease when he was just 40. It left Nichol bringing up his siblings—their mother had died earlier from tuberculosis.
Nichol worked his way up to specialize in miscarriages of justice and is a lawyer for the Socialist Workers Party, of which he is a member. He defended miners during the famous miners’ strike in Britain between 1984-1985.
With the help of a legal team from the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI), Nichol represents the families at the commission, which is chaired by retired judge Ian Farlam. It is examining whether the police were justified in using lethal force, whether union rivalry triggered the violent strike and whether Lonmin played a role.
Nichol says the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) had abandoned its members. He says the union did not write to the bereaved families or represent them at the commission.
“I can think of no graver betrayal than to do nothing for the family of a dead member of your union.”
The families were wholly ignored by the state until Nichol and Joseph Mathunjwa, the president of rival union the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU),  found them.
“It seemed to me that it was wrong. I knew then that I was here to stay,” says the lawyer.
However, NUM’s general secretary, Frans Baleni, says that it is the responsibility of the company or the owner of the infrastructure where the incident happened, to call or write to the bereaved families. He added that the families would have had to give consent to be represented by the union and its lawyers.
Nichol believes that the killings could have been avoided because stopping the strike was not about public order but more about strike breaking.
The evidence suggests the police set up an operation of 800 officers the night before the massacre, including several machine guns, rifles with stun grenades, gas grenades and water cannons, plus helicopters and razor wire. The operation also organized ambulances and fire brigades.
“The decisive point for me that this was not about public order and more about strike breaking came on the morning of August 16, when two statements were made: one by the police commissioners when she said: ‘This strike stops today’ and one by the head of press for SAPS when he said: ‘Today is D-day.’ Why? Why did it have to be today?”
Many witnesses will appear over the next few months. A ruling by Farlam is expected in May. Nichol will be listening.

“It Seemed To Me That It Was Wrong”

It has been another wounding month for Africa’s biggest mining industry that it is likely to take years to recover from, despite efforts by unions and mine owners to heal the rift.
Tens of thousands of mine workers spent the month marching and protesting in wildcat strikes, across South Africa, for more pay. There were so many, it was difficult to keep track.
<div id="attachment_1349" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1349" class="size-medium wp-image-1349" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AV_00024554-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />CARLETONVILLE, SOUTH AFRICA ñ SEPTEMBER 11: Disgruntled mine workers gather to be addressed by expelled ANC Youth League President Julius Malema at Gold Fields Mine on September 11, 2012 in Carletonville, South Africa. The South African Defence Force has been put on high alert following Malemaís visits to various mines in the country. (Photo by Gallo Images / Sowetan / Antonio Muchave)</div>
Fifteen thousand workers were on strike at Gold Fields, stopping production at KDC Mine, in Carletonville 79km west of Johannesburg; hundreds of workers downed tools at ferrochrome miner Samancor; thousands went on strike at AngloGold Ashanti’s operations, 80% of Anglo Platinum’s workforce stayed away and at Aquarius Platinum a mob of 200 illegal strikers forced their way into the mine and threw petrol bombs.
On October 8, the head of Aquarius, the ebullient Stuart Murray, became the third platinum CEO to resign this year.
At least three people died in October in South Africa’s mines and 20 were injured. Police, soldiers and union leaders struggled to keep control amid the tension of nearly three months of wildcat stoppages that would have been unthinkable five years ago when the mines were booming.
Economists talked of the danger of drifting into recession as the losses piled up. By the second week of October, Gold Fields had lost at least 35,000oz of gold from its KDC Mine, while Angloplats, the world’s largest platinum producer, had lost 67,000oz and revenue estimated at R1.1 billion ($125.8 million).
Mines have been closing shafts, cutting costs and firing staff as the losses have grown. Twelve thousand workers lost their jobs at AngloPlats on October 8; at Gold One—where a strike began on October 1—1,435 of 1,900 employees were fired at its Ezulwini Operation and at Bokoni Mine, in Limpopo, 2,000 workers lost their jobs.
More shafts are likely to close in the next few months, at the cost of even more jobs, according to mining analyst at Cadiz Corporate Solutions, Peter Major.
“In August, when the platinum price was down to 1,400 [dollars], half of the mines in South Africa were losing money. The price may have gone up, but now they have to cope with an unstable workforce. The price is only good if your mine is working and I can see more mining companies closing shafts to try to survive,” says Major.
“I was in a telephone conference with Indian investors this week and they were saying they are avoiding all of the mining and resources stocks here. They only wanted to talk about finance and industrial stocks. It was the worse phone call we have had for years.”
Christo Fourie, the CEO of PCC, South Africa&#8217;s biggest quantity surveyors and consultants to mining capital projects, agrees that there is likely to be long-term uncertainty in the industry.
&#8220;A lot of people are concerned right now. We have had a lot of projects put on hold or cancelled,&#8221; he says.
While the mining industry fretted over its future, the custodians of its once robust wage negotiations tried to put the wildcat strike genie back into the bottle.
Unions and mining companies met at the Chamber of Mines in Johannesburg to agree upon new pay scales for the gold mining industry. They include: doing away with Category 3, as an entry level and adjusting all newcomers’ pay up to Category 4; an allowance for rock drill operators; a new category for locomotive, loader, winch and water jet operators and adjustments to pay to preserve the integrity of the current job grading framework.
&#8220;It is critical that all the parties show leadership in restoring stability to the mining industry and bringing an end to the unprotected industrial action that is besetting the industry,” says Elize Strydom, the chief negotiator for the Chamber of Mines.
<div id="attachment_1346" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1346" class="size-medium wp-image-1346" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ED_0016111-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" />CARLETONVILLE, SOUTH AFRICA ñ SEPTEMBER 13: Gold miners gather at Gold Fields KDC West Mine under the watch of police members on September 13, 2012 in Carletonville, South Africa. Miners have embarked on an illegal strike to air their labour grievances and their unhappiness with the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers. (Photo by Gallo Images / Dino Lloyd)</div>
The long-term aim is to bring platinum, which has always settled its own pay deals, into the collective bargaining talks in which unions, representing 300,000 gold and coal workers, strike a pay deal every two years with the mining companies through the Chamber of Mines. It is a process that promises certainty and parity for the workers and a chance to plan for costs for the next two years.  Wages make up 50% of mining costs.
The next wage talks are set for June, but talks will have to begin sooner rather than later if they are to bring platinum into the fold. Even then, there are few certainties to comfort the mine owners in the face of an open revolt against low pay.
“Wage talks are not going to do much good, these disputes are all about politics,” says one official from the National Union of Mineworkers.
There are wild whispers doing the rounds that this is an orchestrated grassroots campaign to bring the mines of South Africa to their knees to usher in nationalization, a radical course of action that has all but been abandoned by the government.  Concrete evidence of this is unclear; what is clear is that it is likely to be a bleak Christmas in Africa’s largest mining industry.

It’s Going To Be A Bleak Christmas

South African mining is in tatters after weeks of spreading violence and chaos that has cost R4.5 billion ($544 million) in lost production and threatened many of the country’s erstwhile prosperous mines.
More than 1,000 soldiers have been posted to Marikana and a tight police cordon thrown around the operation.The Lonmin strike has seen one shaft mothballed and 1,200 contract workers sacked.
This is the bitter aftermath of the shootings at the Marikana operations of Lonmin, near Rustenburg north west of Johannesburg, in which 45 people were killed. In the weeks that followed, the wildcat strikes and wage demands spread. It is a sign of dangerous times that Anglo American Platinum (Angloplats) decided to suspend its Rustenburg operations, on September 12, to protect its workers from intimidation—a blow to the international image of South African mining.
“Well, it has been hurt, it has been damaged. You can’t have such a serious incident during a democracy. We have to work towards making sure that we bring back the image and the sanity of the industry,” says Susan Shabangu, South Africa’s minister of mineral resources.
Then there were more wage demands at nearby Implats, strikers stopped workers going underground at Royal Bafokeng Platinum, there was a wildcat strike by 15,000 workers at Gold Fields in Carletonville, 79 kilometers west of Johannesburg; at Marikana 28,000 thousand workers refused to go back and marched with weapons as peace talks failed and wage offers were rejected. The workers want a minimum of R12,500-a-month—triple the current wage.
The unions couldn’t call the workers back and the management appeared powerless to dismiss—often a swift way of squashing an illegal strike—for fear of even more unrest.
The biggest upshot of all this is the highly regulated labor relations procedures—which has helped keep the number of mine strikes down over the years—has been bypassed, at best, mocked at worst. In the past, under the eye of independent mediators, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, wage demands went through extensive talks and delicate mediation. Only an irrevocable breakdown would lead to a strike certificate and a legal walk out. Even then, at best there would be at most a day or two of posturing on the picket line, or even a last minute deal before a drill was downed.
“They are opening up the entire mining industry to pay demands and illegal strike action, you are not going to be able to control illegal strike action&#8230; My biggest fear is that we are not working towards a long term solution,” says the national spokesman of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Lesiba Seshoka.
The first bitter legacy of Marikana is growing distrust and animosity between workers and management in an industry where the deeper underground you work, the less you get paid.
“Let’s be fair, when CEOs get millions we say nothing, when miners ask for twelve thousand Rand everybody make a noise. The manner the economy is structured doesn’t benefit everyone,” says the president of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), Joseph Mathunjwa, on August 31.
During question time in Parliament in Cape Town, on September 13, President Jacob Zuma blamed Lonmin for the unrest at Marikana saying the living conditions in the hostels left a lot to be desired and the company should have built family homes instead.
“Lonmin acknowledges that living conditions are not ideal but it is working towards better living conditions. We accept the criticism, but improving living conditions is a long process,” says Lonmin spokeswoman Sue Vey.
The second legacy of Marikana will be higher costs for mining companies, at a time when they can ill afford it, as workers appear to have proved they can ask for more wages when they want. In mining, most pay negotiations are run, in an orderly fashion, through the Chamber of Mines every two years. Gold and coal miners do this; there are proposals to bring platinum into these pay talks, but it may be too late.
Peter Major, a mining analyst with Cadiz Corporate Solutions, who has studied South African mining for more than 30 years, believes costs in platinum mining are likely to soar.
“Profit margins have fallen from 50%, a few years ago, to 10% now, quite simply the industry is running out of rope… We are getting to a point where people won’t be able to make money even at these platinum prices&#8230; It is terrifying, costs have been going up around 20% a year and these wage demands are likely to send these costs soaring even higher,” says Major.
In the angry chaos of South Africa’s mine, costs may prove the least of its problems.

Tag: Lonmin

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