NUM volunteers hand out T-shirts and stickers in Rustenburg to attract new members.
The National Union of Mineworkers' last-ditch attempts to save its status as a majority union at Lonmin have seen it brave the mine's volatile shafts ahead of its July 16 deadline to evacuate its offices.
This week, the union asked the Labour Court to hear its application to reverse the imminent termination of its recognition agreement with Lonmin no later than July 17.
In Marikana, several NUM officials and shop stewards did the rounds at the platinum miner's shafts, in what was termed a recruitment drive.
Since the Marikana tragedy, the prospects of the NUM capitalising on any perceived or actual weaknesses of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) have been poor, as conditions remain hostile.
This week a troupe of NUM shop stewards and regional officials trudged through Lonmin's expansive Eastern, Western and Karee operations.
At Karee, officials bedecked in the red and black colours of Cosatu emerged from various sedans and SUVs in a show of belated vitality. According to Lonmin's records, Amcu now commands the backing of more than 70% of unskilled labourers, while the NUM's support has slipped below 20%.
Recruitment drive
When the clock struck noon on Wednesday, workers slowly spilled out of the K3 shaft, the same one where slain Amcu regional organiser Mawethu Steven led an unprotected strike in 2011 that saw Amcu gain its first foothold at the mine.
"The drive is being done in the open to dismiss the understanding that it is illegal to belong to the NUM," said the union's regional organiser, Joseph Morallana.
"We're sending a signal to everyone out there that we're back; they can only intimidate us as individuals. So people should join in their numbers and then regroup, so we can fight the notion away."
Morallana, a burly but approachable man, admitted that this was more a show of visibility than an actual recruitment drive.
Most of the workers filing out of the entrance to the shaft paid no attention to the somewhat subdued group of about 20 NUM suppporters.
They either crossed the road and headed down a grassy verge towards the Karee hostel or queued for buses in single file. Banners placed in the gravelly soil, stickers stuck on electricity poles and boxes of NUM T-shirts in front of hawkers' stalls boosted the group's visibility, but few were given away.
There was a degree of interaction with the workers but soon a contingent of Amcu officials started doing the rounds, keeping an eye on the proceedings. They paced the gravel patch and stopped at the bus boarding area to talk to some members.
Less desperate
The NUM's chief negotiator at Lonmin, Eric Gcilitshana, said that in some instances during the recruitment drive the intimidation of workers had been more blatant.
"At Four Belt [shaft] we've come across some serious intimidation, with [Amcu] shop stewards controlling workers out of the shafts and straight to the buses, herding them and keeping them from interacting with us."
It is incidents like these, as outlined in the founding affidavit filed by NUM's Lonmin co-ordinator, Timmy Timbela, that make the NUM's attempt at "invalidating the transfer of NUM's members by Lonmin to Amcu" and the proposed cancellation of the recognition agreement seem less desperate and more credible.
The list of killings (at least seven) and incidents of intimidation between August 12 last year and June makes for chilling reading, while some aspects dealing with fraudulent and invalid stop orders sound, at times, like attempts at exploiting poor literacy levels among workers.
In an answering affidavit, Amcu's Jimmy Gama states that "if thousands of NUM members had been unlawfully transferred, employees would have been aware of this and there would have been an uprising of disgruntled employees and/or thousands of complaints which would have been lodged with Lonmin, which there haven't been. The NUM has failed to provide the details of any one specific member who has complained that his or her membership was unlawfully transferred to Amcu."
Lonmin, meanwhile, has proposed a secret ballot to determine actual union membership. Amcu has warned that if its status as majority union is reversed, the mine could be plunged into chaos.
Workers interviewed this week said they did not fear a ballot as it would not change the status quo, but should the NUM not vacate its mine offices by July 16, they would make their voices heard.
"If they don't leave, we're the majority, so there's not much we need to do," said Amcu member and former strike leader Anele Nogwanya. "We'll just stay away from work and see where that takes them [Lonmin]."