EFF Statement of solidarity and support for the AMCU strike

25 March, 2014

Economic Freedom Fighters stands in solidarity with the mineworkers who have been fighting for a living wage on the picket lines of the Rustenburg and Northham platinum belt. Mineworkers, led by the revolutionary and uncompromising Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union are demanding a wage increase of R12, 500 and have now entered their second month in the strike.

The workers are challenging Lonmin, Impala and Anglo American companies, who have been at the centre of their exploitation for many years. It is a well-known fact that Lonmin, which stands for London Mines, is party to the fall of 34 workers in what is now known as the Marikana massacre. Anglo-American, on the other hand, is the longest beneficiary of South Africa's cheap and easily disposable labour since the start of industrial capitalism.

The workers' demand of R12, 500 must be seen as a historic demand for the restoration of their dignity. It is a challenge of the apartheid patterns of racial abuse where it created conditions for the availability of cheap and easily disposable black labour.

It is EFF policy that the minerals of the country must be in the hands of the people and benefit those who dig them out of the belly of the earth. EFF supports the demand of R12, 500 as stipulated in the Elections Manifesto for 2014 general elections. EFF believes this wage must be imposed by law as a minimum wage for all mineworkers. The leadership of the EFF will visit the mines where workers are on strike to show solidarity.

Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, March 25 2014

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