South Africa’s powerful mining union will stage its first nationwide strike of the post-apartheid era on Tuesday in a signal that patience over the industry’s safety record has reached breaking point.
About 250 000 miners are to down tools in a protest union chiefs say could be intensified if employers do not make significant inroads into the levels of fatalities, with about 200 miners losing their lives every year.
The one-day stoppage will bring production to a complete standstill in 700 mines where workers usually toil hundreds of metres below the surface to unearth everything from gold and diamonds to platinum and coal.
Concerns over safety reached a new peak in early October when 3 200 miners were stuck underground at a gold mine for more than 24 hours after a lift cable snapped.
But while the incident at Elandsrand mine, south-west of Johannesburg, received worldwide media attention, few of the deadly accidents that occur on a near daily basis generate headlines.
”Our objective is to highlight to the industry that we are serious when we say that there is a problem about safety,” National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka said.
Seshoka said the main demand of the union was for companies to invest more of their profits into safety equipment, technology and training.
”They are not doing enough at all. They should invest a lot of money in safety, buying equipment to detect when there are going to be ground falls, to train the workers and for the maintenance of the shafts.”
The country’s Chamber of Mines acknowledges that much work needs to be done to improve safety but insists there is no complacency within the industry.
”We have seen good improvements in 2005 but no improvement in 2006, and in 2007 there is a reduction of our performance,” said Sietse Van der Woude, the chamber’s safety and sustainable development adviser.
Its chief executive, Zoli Diliza, set out plans in October to reduce fatality rates by at least 20% by 2013, acknowledging South Africa’s record fell way short of other mining giants such as Australia, Canada and United States.
President Thabo Mbeki ordered a nationwide audit of safety standards after the Elandsrand fiasco, although a spokesperson at the Minerals and Energy Ministry told Agence France-Presse the review had yet to begin as ”we are still finalising the details”.
There are already signs that the NUM and chamber of mines are working together, with the two sides inking a broad outline agreement last week, which stated their joint commitment to regular safety checks and meetings on safety.
The degree of anger felt by the NUM is illustrated by the fact that Tuesday’s strike will be the first since the end of the whites-only apartheid regime 13 years ago.
During the apartheid years, NUM strikes were a key factor in the undermining of the regime.
Mining, which generated R195-billion in local sales last year, is the largest foreign-exchange earner for South Africa and brought in a total of R355-billion rand from exports, according to the chamber. — Sapa-AFP