Joshua Amupadhi and Mungo Soggot
EVIDENCE that Gold Fields’s racial classification of workers could have contributed to the promotion of slaughter at the company’s mines has emerged at the Myburgh Commission of Inquiry.
The evidence, which showed that the company identified workers’ ethnic backgrounds on their clock-in cards, followed a startlingly frank account of the mine’s ethnically centred approach to recruitment that boiled down to: Shangaans are very good with machines, residents of Lesotho are good at shaft-sinking, but Englishmen and Afrikaners are good at everything.
The commission, chaired by Judge John Myburgh, followed 48 deaths related to ethnic conflict in the past three months at three of Gold Fields’s operations. Myburgh, who has succeeded in having his commission stay on for six months to address mine violence in general, recommended the abolition of ethnically segregated hostels. Attorneys acting for the National Union of Mineworkers told the Mail & Guardian they believed ethnicity merely provided mineworkers housed in appalling conditions with a convenient way to target co-workers.
According to transcripts of the commission’s hearing which recently became available, Jeanette Neevling, an advocate acting for the commission, said she had statements from witnesses claiming they were “asked by perpetrators for their clock cards. And one of the witnesses was a Shangaan and one was a Zulu.” She asked William Eksteen, the mine manager from Northam Platinum: “So do you agree that their cards depicted … [their ethnic background]?”
Eksteen replied he was not sure, but said he would check with his colleagues. “And do you also agree with me that it is not necessary information on the clock cards and that you should reconsider the use of that kind of clock card?” Neevling asked. Eksteen replied “Yes.”
Alan Munro, executive director of the company’s gold operations, confirmed this week the company identified workers’ ethnic background on their clock-in cards at all its mines. He told the Mail & Guardian that the abolition of racial classification on workers’ time-shift cards would be one of the first reforms undertaken.
When first approached for comment Munro said the matter would be dealt with by mine management.
Asked what the purpose of the ethnic tags was, he said: “I do not know. But it should be changed.” In a subsequent conversation he said he would personally oversee the ditching of the system which was applied at all Gold Fields operations. He said other mining houses allocated workers numbers which reflected their ethnic backgrounds and that these should also be done away with.
In Munro’s statement to the commission, he said: “The fact [is] that over the years various ethnic groups appear to have made certain aspects of mine labour their own in terms of skills … For example it is well accepted that persons from Lesotho are skilled in the shaft-sinking activities and this leads to direct recruiting efforts accordingly.”
Mine manager Eksteen said: “The Zulu people are excellent in production sections, like the Swazis in drilling machines. If we talk about operating percussion machines, they are very good in doing that …”
On the Xhosas, he told attorney Tefo Raditapole, who was appearing on behalf of the National Union of Mineworkers: “…When it came to smelting operations and running furnaces they could do that very well. They also showed that as operators of scoop trams …”
He told Raditapole he could not say what the Tswanas excelled at but “… the Mbatlas have a particular job that only they do and nobody else. And we know the Shangaans are very good mechanical people.”
Raditapole pursued the same line of questioning with chief personnel officer David Poole. Poole said both Afrikaners and English-speakers could perform a wide range of skills.
Labour Minister Tito Mboweni welcomed Myburgh’s report but said it failed to investigate management’s role in the conflict adequately .