சுரங்கத் தொழிலாளர்களைச் சுட்டுப் பொசுக்கும் மண்டேலாவின் ``சுதந்திரம்``!

 

 

சுரங்கத் தொழிலாளர்களைச் சுட்டுப் பொசுக்கும் மண்டேலாவின் ``சுதந்திரம்``

* தம் நாட்டு மூலவளம் மீது தன்னுரிமையற்ற தென்னாபிரிக்க மக்கள்.

* அந்நிய ஏகபோக கம்பெனிகளுக்கு கட்டற்ற அதிகாரம்.

* தொழிலாளர் மீது பாயும் `நிற வெறி` ஆதிக்க கறுப்புச் சட்டங்கள்.

* வேலை நிறுத்தம் சட்டவிரோதம் எனப் பிரகடனம்.

* போராடிய பல்லாயிரக்கணக்கான தொழிலாளர்கள் வேலை நீக்கம்.

* தொழிற்சங்கத் தலைவர் படுகொலை.

* அந்நிய ஏகாதிபத்திய நலன்காக்க, சொந்த நாட்டு தொழிலாளர் மீது அடக்குமுறையை ஏவும், `கறுப்பின அரசு`, `கறுப்பதிகார பொலிஸ்`.

 

Massacre at Marikana: the fight continues in South Africa

 

Mineworkers of the Marikana diamond mine in South Africa are continuing their strike. Their perseverence comes after violent police efforts to suppress the strike, efforts culminating in a horrendous bloodbath on 16 August, when police machinegunned protesting miners, killing 34 and arresting at least 250 of them.

 

[Note: this is the article I wrote for the September issue of Freedom; of course, it's best to buy the issue itself. Here, I publish the version I sent in, with footnotes that did not make it into the printed version. ofcourse, the article is dated because so much has happened since.Author]

 

On 10 August, 3.000 of the 28.000 Marikana miners went on strike to support a wage demand. The strikers belonged to a category of very low-paid miners doing arduous, risky work deep down below. The National Union of Miners (NUM), belonging tot the mainstream union federation COSATU, neglected these workers and their needs. Another union, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) took a more militant pose and tried to make itself into the voice of the angry miners. Soon the strike was accompanied by violence between strikers on the one hand, police, security, and NUM supporters being attacked by strikers on the other.

 

But it would be very wrong to blame it all on 'inter-union rivalry'. AMCU sounds more militant and is more in touch. But the battle line is not AMCU versus NUM; the frontline is angry workers pressing a wage demand against management that refuses. A violent impasse followed. Then, police – encouraged by NUM and COSATU – moved into action.

 

They attacked the strikers who had assembled on a nearby hill , some of them armed with nives and the likes, encircled them, tied to disperse them by teargas. A group of strikers refused to disperse and, according to the police version, attack their attackers. Police opened fire with machine guns and shot 34 miners dead in the most ferocious repression against protesting workers in post-Apartheid South Africa. It reminded people of the violence the apartheid regime meted out against protests, for instance in Sharpeville, 1961 and Soweto, 1976. The skin colour of the state-funded murderers had changed, but no much more.

Since the massacre, government-linked progressives like the South African Communist Party (SACP) have supported the police repression, calling the event “not a massacre”, but “a battle”, and the police operation “admirable” (1). Defending capital, the state and the police is more important to these so-called leftists than defending workers in struggle. Different reactions are coming from opoor people in struggle against the authorities, as a solidarity declaration of a slum dwellers organisation shows (2). Meanwhile, Lomnin, the mine owning company, tried to force the miners back to work with an ultimatum that they later softened. However, at the moment of writing – 28 August - the strike is still continuing, while reports of arrested workers having been mistreated by police are now surfacing (3). The angry miners have not been defeated by the massacre. There is more resistance to come.

(1): “The Marikana Massacre: a premeditated killing?”, Benjamin Fogel,, on Libcom.org, 24 August
 (3): “Solidarity with mine workers at Marikana Platinum”,on Libcom.org, 17 August.
 (3): “Tensions as S. African miners continue strikes”, Aljazeera, 27 August.
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South African union leader shot dead near Lonmin mine - NUM

Striking platinum miners wait behind a police cordon at the site where violent clashes overnight left one person dead near the Anglo American Platinum (AMPLATS) mine in Rustenburg in South Africa's North West Province, October 5, 2012.

 

Credit: Reuters/Mike Hutchings

JOHANNESBURG | Fri Oct 5, 2012 9:29pm BST

 

 

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A branch leader of South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was shot dead on Friday near a mine run by platinum producer Lonmin as labour unrest sweeps the mining sector.

 

NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka told Reuters the union leader had been killed "execution style" in the evening hours but gave no further details.

 

Earlier on Friday Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) fired 12,000 wildcat strikers, a high-stakes attempt by the world's biggest platinum producer to push back at the illegal stoppages in Africa's biggest economy.
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S.Africa's Amplats fires 12,000 strikers, union leader shot

 

* Amplats fires 12,000 wildcat strikers

* Local NUM leader shot dead near Lonmin

* "Platinum belt" death toll nears 50

* Rand falls as labour unrest spreads

* Shell declares "force majeure"

 

By Agnieszka Flak

 

JOHANNESBURG, Oct 5 (Reuters) - South Africa's Amplats fired 12,000 wildcat strikers on Friday, a high-stakes attempt by the world's biggest platinum producer to push back at a wave of illegal stoppages sweeping through the country's mining sector and beyond.

 

Later on, a trade union leader was shot dead near a mine run by platinum producer Lonmin in a potentially explosive escalation of the two-month-old violent labour unrest that took the death toll to 49.

 

National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said the NUM branch leader had been killed "execution style" in the evening but gave no further details.

 

A six-week stoppage at Lonmin in August and September erupted out of a turf war between the NUM and the more militant Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), which accuses the NUM of acting for its government allies rather than its members.

 

The hefty hikes won by workers from that saga has been a red rag to others while anger has been stoked by the killing of 34 miners in a hail of police bullets outside Lonmin's Marikana mine in an incident that evoked apartheid-era shootings.

 

 

The sackings at Amplats (Anglo American Platinum) on Friday triggered a sharp fall in South Africa's rand as investors dumped the country's assets.

 

The rand fell as much as 4 percent to 3-1/2 year lows after Johannesburg markets closed, adding to the mounting toll inflicted on Africa's biggest economy.

 

Strikes have spread beyond the mining sector, with Shell saying on Friday it would not be able to honour contracts to deliver fuel near Johannesburg because of a trucking strike.

 

The unrest is causing political trouble for President Jacob Zuma and his ruling African National Congress (ANC), the veteran liberation movement with long-standing ties to labour unions.

 

"You fire 12,000 people, and it's like 'Oh my god, what happens now?'" one Johannesburg-based currency strategist said.

 

When rival Impala Platinum fired 17,000 workers on an illegal strike rooted in the NUM/AMCU struggle, it led to a violent six week stoppage in which the company lost 80,000 ounces in output and platinum prices jumped 21 percent.

 

The wage deal that followed the killings at the Marikana mine in August triggered copycat demands in gold and iron ore.

 

"Amplats had been giving signals that it was going to hold the line after Lonmin had folded - but it's a huge gamble," said Nic Borain, an independent political analyst.

 

"Someone had to take it on the chin or this would have kept on unravelling and spread through the economy. It's difficult to know whether this causes the unrest to spread or whether it takes some of the sting out of it. It could go either way."

 

Speaking to South Africa's e-News television channel, one dismissed worker said Amplats was "starting a war".

ZUMA UNDER PRESSURE

The ANC Youth League, a fierce critic of Zuma, lashed out at Amplats, which it said "has made astronomical profits on the blood, sweat and tears of the very same workers that today the company can just fire with impunity".

 

"Amplats is a disgrace and a disappointment to the country at large, a representation of white monopoly capital out of touch and uncaring of the plight of the poor," it said.

 

Zuma tried to put a positive spin on the situation in a speech to business leaders late on Thursday, stressing that since the end of white-minority rule South Africans have shown "the capacity to overcome difficulties when we work together".

 

"We should not seek to portray ourselves as a nation that is perpetually fighting," he said.

However, with an ANC leadership run-off looming in December, Nelson Mandela's 100-year-old liberation movement is preoccupied with its own divisions. Zuma is seen as unlikely to take any action that could upset his political allies in the unions.

 

"In the build-up to the election, the government is unlikely to come out with any clear policy directives," said Simon Freemantle, an analyst at Standard Bank in Johannesburg.

 

Reflecting such concerns, Moody's cut South Africa's credit rating last week. Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has already said he will have to cut his 2.7 percent growth forecast for 2012 when he delivers an interim budget on Oct. 24.

 

MINER SHOT

 

More than 75,000 miners, or 15 percent of the workforce in a sector that accounts for 6 percent of output, have been out on unofficial strikes, and tensions with security forces and mining bosses were running high even before the mass Amplats sackings.

 

Near the "platinum belt" city of Rustenburg, 120 km (70 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, workers said a miner was killed by a rubber bullet fired by police on Thursday night.

 

Police would not confirm the cause of the death, although the ground nearby was strewn with spent rubber-bullet shell casings and teargas canisters after clashes the previous night.

 

On Friday, protesters in a shanty town near the Amplats mine barricaded streets with rocks and burning tyres as more than 30 riot police backed by armoured vehicles stood nearby.

 

AngloGold Ashanti, South Africa's biggest bullion producer, has lost virtually all local production due to wildcat strikes, while rivals Gold Fields and Harmony Gold have also taken a hit. Around 300 strikers at Kumba Iron Ore have also blockaded the company's giant Sishen mine in the remote Northern Cape province.

 

Apart from the mining sector, a strike with more potential to damage the wider economy is brewing in transport, with 20,000 truckers on a two-week authorised stoppage to demand higher pay.

 

Shell said on Friday it could not honour fuel delivery contracts around Johannesburg, declaring "force majeure" to free itself and customers from existing obligations.

 

"There is fuel available across the country, so the issue is not fuel supply, but the challenge is delivering it safely to our retail sites," the oil major said. Other petrol companies are holding their breath, especially around the commercial hub Johannesburg, but have not yet followed Shell's move.

Raising the stakes, transport union SATAWU said it wanted workers at railways and ports to strike next week, a development that would affect coal and other mineral shipments.