The lessons of Marikana: COSATU's 2nd anniversary statement
Two years ago on 16 August 2012, after more than 24 workers had already been murdered in and around Marikana, 34 mine workers were killed by the police in an event which shocked the world, leading to the government instituting a judicial commission to determine the reasons leading to these unforgivable deaths.
These events amount to by far the worst disaster in South African working class history in our 20 years of democracy.
We are still struggling to come to terms with all the implications of the Marikana tragedy and the lessons we should be learning from it. This challenge is exacerbated by the continuation of violence and intimidation of workers and residents in and around Marikana.
While some arrests have been made, far more needs to be done to restore normality to the area, so that people can live without fear. A culture of impunity still exists and we still have to struggle to defend the fundamental human right to move freely without fear of attack.
Too little has been done to implement the Framework Agreement for a Sustainable Mining Industry, signed by organised labour (with the exception of Nactu and Amcu), organised business and government on 3 July 2013. All role-players agreed to the necessity of both immediate measures to stop the killings and bring those responsible to justice and a fundamental transformation of the whole mining industry.
COSATU'S 11th Congress, which met just five weeks later, welcomed the establishment of the Farlam Commission of Inquiry, but two years later it is still slowly ploughing through the evidence, not reaching any conclusive explanation of the causes of the deaths, who was responsible, or what needs to be done to make sure we never again see such tragic events.
Meanwhile the underlying problems in the mining industry remain largely unchanged. That was why COSATU's 11th Congress Declaration called for a second Independent Commission of Inquiry, parallel to the Farlam Commission, to review the underlying conditions in the mining industry as a whole.
The underlying causes of what happened on those fateful days can be traced back to the employers' greed which has characterised the mining industry and the historical colonial and apartheid legislative framework which continues to perpetuate inhumane conditions of exploitation.
This was set in motion by two important statutes which were passed in the very first session of the Union Parliament in 1911 - the Mines and Works Act which reserved certain occupations in the mining industry for whites only and thus laid down the principle of the industrial colour bar - and the Native Labour Regulation Act, with which the government armed itself with powers to control the movement of Africans.
Not only was their movement from one area to another strictly determined by these laws, but their vertical mobility was to be strictly controlled through subsequent legislation which condemned the African worker to a position of menial labourer.
By controlling the movement of African labour the government created a pool of cheap labour in the native reserves which could be drawn upon to satisfy the needs of employers in the `white areas` - in the mines, manufacturing industry, commerce or the farms.
The effect of this was two-pronged. Firstly it entrenched the practice of migrant labour, by creating a situation where only the labourer was permitted to live in the `white areas` while his family was left in the reserves.
The ruinous effects of the migrant labour system on the social and family life of Africans have been well documented. It gave rise to the compound system, under workers were housed in single-sex compounds, which went under the name `hostel` to make them sound more respectable.
The African people who were deriving their living from the land were now forced into becoming wage-earners who lived away from their family so that the employer would not have to pay for the maintenance of the workers wife and children.
These acts eliminated competition for jobs in various sectors of the economy by making it a criminal offence for Africans, but not for whites, to break a labour contract. This resulted in the adoption of an average standard wage for the `native`, a wage level which became the model for all sectors of the economy.
Then the Natives Land Act of 1913 separated South Africa into areas in which either blacks or whites could own freehold land: blacks, constituting two-thirds of the population, were restricted to 7.5% of the land; whites, making up one-fifth of the population, were given 92.5%.
The act also stated that Africans could live outside their own lands only if employed as labourers by whites. It made illegal the common practice of Africans working as sharecroppers on farms in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, speeded up land dispossession from the Africans, introduced poll taxes and intensified the pass system - all aimed at accessing cheap labour, maximizing profits for white capital and protecting the white population in the laager of exclusive privileges.
The democratic, co-operative basis of tribal society was broken down, and the entire African people turned into a right-less community of impoverished peasants and underpaid forced labourers in white-controlled farms, mines and factories.
Mining was, and in many ways still is, an industry run by ruthless bosses, based on virtual slave labour, recruited from all over Southern Africa, employed for next to nothing in deadly danger every day, facing the likelihood of contracting fatal diseases, suffering physical abuse, living in squalid single-sex hostels, divided on the basis of tribal factionalism and dismissed without hearings.
Between 1900 and 1994, 69,000 mine workers were killed in accidents and over a million seriously injured. 2301 workers lost their lives in the ten years between 2001 and 2011, and nearly 43,000 were seriously injured. While the rate of fatalities and injuries has slowly declined, it is still totally unacceptable, and has led the NUM to call many strikes on safety.
Thousands have died from TB, silicosis, caused by inhaling silica dust underground, and HIV and AIDS, all made worse by poor living and working conditions. As the NUM has put it "Many mining workers employed underground will not live to see retirement without bodily harm. They will either be killed, injured or fall sickly."
The mining industry is also still has elements of apartheid. Although no longer enforced by law, racism is institutionally entrenched through occupational segregation. While 83.7% of the total workforce in the industry is black, 84% of top management remains white! 72% of middle management is white, and 68% of professional workers and artisans are white. It is not unusual even to find white workers using separate shaft lifts.
While progress has been made in recruiting and training women in the industry, the environment remains hostile. Discrimination and violence are rife, and even rape and murder take place.
Today the mining bosses continue to openly defy the implementation of the Mining Charter which has the potential to fundamentally transform the sector. Indeed, at the centre of these painful events at Marikana was intransigence of the Lonmin Mining bosses who were refusing to accede to demands for a R12 500 increase in salaries demanded by the workers.
"We are extremely concerned," declared the COSATU 11th Congress, "that the events of 16th August and the ongoing violence, whose main victims remain the exploited masses, has shifted the focus and blame from the platinum bosses who have systematically undermined collective bargaining and promoted division amongst workers, and who have been sitting in the shadows enjoying profits from the very workers whose families have now been robbed of their only breadwinners."
It is taking far too long for this industry to be transformed and to shake off its legacy from the years of colonialism and apartheid. Progress has been made to improve the worst aspects of all this brutal exploitation, thanks to decades of often bloody struggles in the trenches led by the NUM, yet many of the essential features remain in place. This is why we need the 2nd Commission of Inquiry.
In one respect things are getting even worse. Inequality is getting even wider, between the workers who toil in dangerous conditions to extract the precious metals and the shareholders of the employing companies, many based overseas, whose profits consistently rise faster that the workers' wages.
The gross inequality was highlighted when it was announced in May this year that Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) CEO Chris Griffith, his 11 executives and top management had been awarded R25.3 million in a bonus-share scheme that would pay out in three years as part of a skills-retention scheme. A further R51.8 million would be awarded to them over the same period if a number of performance criteria were met.
Griffith personally was paid a total R17.6-million, of which R6.7-million was a basic salary. And he even had the gall to say: "Am I getting paid on a fair basis for what I'm having to deal with in this company? Must I run this company and deal with all this nonsense for nothing? I'm at work. I'm not on strike. I'm not demanding to be paid what I'm not worth."
He expects a mineworker to have to work 209 years to earn what he makes in one year, and even tries to justify it!
Another new challenge in the platinum sector is Amplats' decision to sell off its oldest South African mines. COSATU has pledged its full support for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in its battle with the company and the Department of Mineral Resources to find alternatives to save these jobs.
This proposed sell-off strengthens COSATU's argument for strategic nationalisation of key industries, which certainly include mining, which is so critical for the economy yet is in the hands of monopoly companies which use its mining licences just to amass profits, and not to develop the economy, create jobs and play their part in the radical transformation of our economy.
The mining industry directly employs around half a million workers, with another 400,000 employed indirectly by suppliers of goods and services. Its combined direct and indirect contribution to our gross domestic product is around 18% and accounts for over half South Africa's foreign exchange earnings.
Amplats' decision also gives the government the opportunity to use the new state mining company to buy the mines that the company is selling and use them as a model for the policies envisaged by the ANC, including beneficiation rather than export, decent wages and better conditions for the workers, development of the local communities and environmentally friendly policies.
Another problem arsing from the events at Marikana and another argument for nationalisation is the employers continued use of the divide-and-rule tactic to weaken the power of the unions, especially the NUM, which has been systematically sabotaged by employers collaborating to set up a divisive breakaway union, resuscitated tribalism in some areas, and using labour brokers to undermine the conditions of the permanent workers.
The final words of the 11th Congress Declaration are as relevant today as in September 2012: "We remain committed to doing whatever it will take to rebuild the confidence of the working class in the mines in the NUM and the unity of the Federation. We will work with the NUM to ensure that the mine workers who have left the NUM are brought back into the COSATU fold and to the home where they belong, and that their legitimate concerns about working and living conditions in the industry are addressed with maximum solidarity from all workers in the Federation."
The conditions in the mines have to be seen against the wider background of South Africa's deep triple crisis of mass poverty, high unemployment and extreme inequality, which leads to such anger and despair among thousands of the South African working class.
As we keep warning this crisis is creating ticking time bombs. Marikana was by far the biggest one to explode, so far but it was by certainly not the only one, as we see in the rising number of strikes and community protests.
On the first anniversary off Marikana in 2013, we contrasted the conditions workers face today with those promised in our Freedom Charter, which will be 60 years old next year. Though attempts have been made by government to advance the demands articulated in the charter we are is still far from achieving that dream which among others said:
We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know:
The people shall govern!
All national groups shall have equal rights!
The people shall share in the country`s wealth!
The land shall be shared among those who work it!
All shall be equal before the law!
All shall enjoy equal human rights!
There shall be work and security!
The doors of learning and culture shall be opened!
There shall be houses, security and comfort!
There shall be peace and friendship!
If all these commitments in the Freedom Charter were fully implemented we would permanently and dramatically transform the lives of workers and the poor and put us firmly on the road to a socialist South Africa. That would be the best way to honour the memory of those who died on the Wonderkop two years ago.
COSATU repeats the pledge made at the 11th Congress, "that we will continue to strive to unite all workers in the struggle against poverty and exploitation, and for safe working conditions, decent and quality jobs, comprehensive social security and comprehensive social services".
There must be no more Marikanas!
Issued by COSATU national spokesperson, Patrick Craven, August 17 2014
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