COSATU welcomes Aurora decision
The Congress of South African Trade Unions joins its affiliate, the National Union of Mineworkers, in applauding the decision of the provisional liquidators of Aurora Empowerment Systems to terminate its interim trading contract to run the Orkney and Grootvlei mines.
We further welcome the order to compel the company to restore the mines to the condition they were in when they took them over from DRD Gold, and to vacate the premises before close of business today.
Companies like Aurora have no place in a democratic South Africa; it is the runaway favourite to take the title of the worst employer of 2011. It owes its workers millions of rands in unpaid wages and has left them with virtually no income for two years. It has condemned the workers and their families to hunger and misery. One has even taken his own life, so great was his despair.
COSATU demands that the government investigate both Aurora and the dismissed liquidators - Enver Motala from SBT Trust and Gavin Gainsford from KPMG. The investigators must look into allegations that the company, with the connivance of the liquidators, were asset-stripping the mines by looting and selling off equipment, and find out whether the liquidators received kick-backs for turning a blind eye to this. They must also look into the numerous breaches of the labour laws in the way the company treated their workers.
COSATU fully agrees with the NUM that companies such as Aurora should "not be given any chance to again play games with poor people's lives" and the union's hope "that it will be banished in the mining industry under whatever name it may reappear".
The dismissed liquidators also must not be allowed to operate within the industry, and if any of them, or the Aurora directors, are found to have acted illegally, they must be brought to justice, and be compelled to repay all the money owed to the workers.
The shocking record of Aurora Empowerment Systems strengthens the case for the nationalisation of the mining industry.
In the short term, the federation would support a takeover by another company which can get the mines back into production and provide employment. In the longer term however, such a crucial national asset should not be a means for capitalists to get rich quick by exploiting and then abandoning workers.
The mining industry must be run by and for the benefit of the people of South Africa, in line with the Freedom Charter's pledge that "The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole."
Statement issued by Patrick Craven, COSATU national spokesperson, May 30 2011
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