South African Platinum Strike Settled at Northam While Other Actions Loom

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, addressing the attendees at the Moratorium NOW! holiday party on Saturday December 21, 2013., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

South African Platinum Strike Settled at Northam While Other Actions Loom

NUM wins 9.5 percent wage increase while AMCU may stop work at Lonmin and Impala

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

An eleven-week strike by 7,000 members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) against Northam Platinum facilities at Zondereinde near Thabazimbi has resulted in a settlement where the employees will receive a raise of 9.5 percent. The strike was a major challenge for the NUM in the face of the intransigence of the bosses and the competition from the rival Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU).

This strike represented the continuation of protracted strife in the platinum mining sector where for the last one-and-a-half years tens of thousands of workers have dropped their tools. In August of 2012, 34 platinum mine workers at Lonmin’s facilities at Marikana in Rustenburg were gunned down by the Northwest provincial police.

In a statement released by the union on January 17 it says that “The NUM will continue to fight for better salaries and better working conditions for our members. NUM will never allow a situation where our members risk their precious life going deep down in the surface of the earth in searing heat to earn poverty wages. It is unacceptable.”

In regard to the character of the strike the same statement goes on to note that “This has been a peaceful, bloodless and effective legal strike. The NUM maintains that violent strikes are unnecessary and they should never be allowed to replace dialogue. We truly thank our members for their discipline during this tough and difficult industrial action here at Northam Platinum Limpopo.”

The ending of this strike is being overshadowed by other possible industrial actions in the most intense platinum producing region of the Northwest. The rival AMCU, which now has more members than NUM in the Lonmin and Impala mines, may strike during the week of January 20.

According to the Business Day Live, “The NUM’s fierce rival, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), is threatening to issue strike notices next week at Impala Platinum and Lonmin, the world’s second- and third-largest platinum producers, respectively.

Anglo American Platinum, the largest producer, also faces a strike as AMCU calls its members out to back its demands for entry-level wages to more than double to R12,500 ($US 1,150) a month.” (January 17)

Platinum mine owners have been reporting decreases in their profits due to strike actions. South Africa is the world’s largest producer of platinum with approximately 80 percent of known reserves.

During 2013 the bosses were threatening to lay-off thousands of its workers claiming that demands for substantial wage increases were driving down profits and creating losses. Nonetheless, worker salaries and conditions of employment created an atmosphere of militancy that the owners could not ignore.

Business Day Live stressed that “platinum company CEOs have warned against granting double-digit wage increases in an industry where more than half of the sector’s mines are loss-making in the face of high input costs and relatively weak prices for platinum group metals.” Similar positions have been articulated by the capitalists in the gold sector where large-scale downsizing has occurred in South Africa over the last two decades since the African National Congress (ANC) has been in power.

Class and Ideological Struggles Intensify Surrounding National Elections

National presidential and parliamentary elections will be taking place in South Africa in April. The ANC has issued its campaign manifesto where it is calling for increased social spending and the creation of six million new jobs.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the nation’s largest labor federation, has endorsed the ANC Election Manifesto. This is taking place despite a fierce debate that is going on within the organization.

COSATU revealed in a public statement that it participated in the formulation of the election manifesto and its launching on January 11. The federation views the campaign program as building upon what it considers as the progress that has been made over the last twenty years. (COSATU, January 15)

In the COSATU statement issued in support of the ANC Election Manifesto it lists several reasons why they have endorsed the party program. These points of agreement included the pledge by the ANC to increase wages, ensure collective bargaining and employment equity, along with reforming the financial sector of the national economy.

Other important issues relate to the pledge of the ANC to “Speed up the roll-out of our massive economic and social infrastructure programs, especially in energy, public transport, ICT and water supply, to unlock economic opportunities, create jobs and improve the quality of life of our people.”

Also COSATU supports the Manifesto’s call to “Enforce legislation to eliminate abusive work practices in atypical work and labor brokering and improve the capacity of the Department of Labor to enforce this and all other labor laws. COSATU will work with government to ensure compliance with these laws and will continue to campaign for the total banning of labor brokers.”

However, the largest current affiliate in COSATU, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), has criticized the federation leadership for what it describes as its uncritical support of the ANC. NUMSA held a special congress in December where these differences were aired publicly.

Even though NUMSA has taken positions at variance with COSATU, the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP), the labor federation says that it will not suspend or expel the affiliate. There has been speculation that NUMSA may attempt to organize across sectors violating COSATU’s constitution of ‘one union, one industry’ and possibly form a workers’ party to eventually contest elections on a local and national level.

COSATU President Sdumo Dlamini said of the special NUMSA congress and its status within the federation that "Hard luck.... We are not going to expel them.... We want them in COSATU. We are not saying we cannot expel anyone.... We are saying if you do wrong things deliberately to expel yourself ... we won’t give you that at the time that you want it. But if they choose (to leave), that’s the choice they take." (Business Day Live, December 19)

The ongoing labor actions as well as the upcoming elections will give a strong indication of the trajectory that the South African working class will pursue. There have been strong representation from workers and youth at the Manifesto launches throughout various regions of the country and if this is any indication of the popularity of the ruling party it will be victorious in the upcoming elections where the government for the next five years will be selected.