SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
12,000 Miners Fired as South African Strikes Intensify
Death toll reaches 48 as the impact of the strike cripples economy
Oct 05, 2012
The world's top producer of metal announced today the firing of 12,000 striking workers in South Africa. The Anglo American Platinum (Amplants) mine has been threatening the workers for weeks, claiming that the 20,000 striking miners are engaging in an "illegal" strike.
Reuters reports that the strikers responded on Friday by protesting in a shanty town near the Amplants mine--located city of Rustenburg, 70 miles northwest of Johannesburg--by barricading streets with rocks and burning tires "watched by a contingent of more than 30 riot police backed by armored vehicles."
Strike leader Gaddafi Mdoda told the Associated Press that the miners would intensify their three-week-long strike, even if they were no longer bona fide employees of Amplats. The striking miners are seeking a raise a salary of $500 per month to $2,000.
These sacks come the day after a worker's body was found near one of the mines. Mdoda said that "the body belonged to another striker who had died from rubber-coated bullets shot to disperse the protesters on Thursday night." Neither police nor mine workers have commented on the death, which is the 48th casualty since the strikes began.
In what is being called the "worst labor unrest since end of apartheid," over 75,000 South African workers, or 15 per cent of the nation's work force, are on strike throughout the country.
The workers have found strength in numbers and have been buoyed by other successes. As reported by Common Dreams, in August a strike at platinum mine Marikana led to violence that shocked the nation when police killed 34 miners wounding more than 70 others. In the wake of that massacre, the Marikana strikers won a successful pay increase of 22 percent and the incident is now the subject of an official inquiry.
South African President Jacob Zuma has been facing intense pressure and criticism, both in response to the extreme violence against workers and also to settle the disputes that are crippling industry nationwide. The two months of unrest has spread from mines to other areas of the economy. A two week freeze by 20,000 truckers has resulted in Shell announcing on Friday that they could no longer honor fuel delivery contracts around Johannesburg. As reported by Reuters, the oil giant explains that "there is fuel available across the country...but the challenge is delivering it safely to our retail sites."
Marching against a gold mine in another striking outpost, Buti Manamela, the president of the Young Communist League chants: "Divided we fall, united we stand. ... We can never achieve Nelson Mandela's rainbow nation if we are unequal in terms of wages."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
The world's top producer of metal announced today the firing of 12,000 striking workers in South Africa. The Anglo American Platinum (Amplants) mine has been threatening the workers for weeks, claiming that the 20,000 striking miners are engaging in an "illegal" strike.
Reuters reports that the strikers responded on Friday by protesting in a shanty town near the Amplants mine--located city of Rustenburg, 70 miles northwest of Johannesburg--by barricading streets with rocks and burning tires "watched by a contingent of more than 30 riot police backed by armored vehicles."
Strike leader Gaddafi Mdoda told the Associated Press that the miners would intensify their three-week-long strike, even if they were no longer bona fide employees of Amplats. The striking miners are seeking a raise a salary of $500 per month to $2,000.
These sacks come the day after a worker's body was found near one of the mines. Mdoda said that "the body belonged to another striker who had died from rubber-coated bullets shot to disperse the protesters on Thursday night." Neither police nor mine workers have commented on the death, which is the 48th casualty since the strikes began.
In what is being called the "worst labor unrest since end of apartheid," over 75,000 South African workers, or 15 per cent of the nation's work force, are on strike throughout the country.
The workers have found strength in numbers and have been buoyed by other successes. As reported by Common Dreams, in August a strike at platinum mine Marikana led to violence that shocked the nation when police killed 34 miners wounding more than 70 others. In the wake of that massacre, the Marikana strikers won a successful pay increase of 22 percent and the incident is now the subject of an official inquiry.
South African President Jacob Zuma has been facing intense pressure and criticism, both in response to the extreme violence against workers and also to settle the disputes that are crippling industry nationwide. The two months of unrest has spread from mines to other areas of the economy. A two week freeze by 20,000 truckers has resulted in Shell announcing on Friday that they could no longer honor fuel delivery contracts around Johannesburg. As reported by Reuters, the oil giant explains that "there is fuel available across the country...but the challenge is delivering it safely to our retail sites."
Marching against a gold mine in another striking outpost, Buti Manamela, the president of the Young Communist League chants: "Divided we fall, united we stand. ... We can never achieve Nelson Mandela's rainbow nation if we are unequal in terms of wages."
The world's top producer of metal announced today the firing of 12,000 striking workers in South Africa. The Anglo American Platinum (Amplants) mine has been threatening the workers for weeks, claiming that the 20,000 striking miners are engaging in an "illegal" strike.
Reuters reports that the strikers responded on Friday by protesting in a shanty town near the Amplants mine--located city of Rustenburg, 70 miles northwest of Johannesburg--by barricading streets with rocks and burning tires "watched by a contingent of more than 30 riot police backed by armored vehicles."
Strike leader Gaddafi Mdoda told the Associated Press that the miners would intensify their three-week-long strike, even if they were no longer bona fide employees of Amplats. The striking miners are seeking a raise a salary of $500 per month to $2,000.
These sacks come the day after a worker's body was found near one of the mines. Mdoda said that "the body belonged to another striker who had died from rubber-coated bullets shot to disperse the protesters on Thursday night." Neither police nor mine workers have commented on the death, which is the 48th casualty since the strikes began.
In what is being called the "worst labor unrest since end of apartheid," over 75,000 South African workers, or 15 per cent of the nation's work force, are on strike throughout the country.
The workers have found strength in numbers and have been buoyed by other successes. As reported by Common Dreams, in August a strike at platinum mine Marikana led to violence that shocked the nation when police killed 34 miners wounding more than 70 others. In the wake of that massacre, the Marikana strikers won a successful pay increase of 22 percent and the incident is now the subject of an official inquiry.
South African President Jacob Zuma has been facing intense pressure and criticism, both in response to the extreme violence against workers and also to settle the disputes that are crippling industry nationwide. The two months of unrest has spread from mines to other areas of the economy. A two week freeze by 20,000 truckers has resulted in Shell announcing on Friday that they could no longer honor fuel delivery contracts around Johannesburg. As reported by Reuters, the oil giant explains that "there is fuel available across the country...but the challenge is delivering it safely to our retail sites."
Marching against a gold mine in another striking outpost, Buti Manamela, the president of the Young Communist League chants: "Divided we fall, united we stand. ... We can never achieve Nelson Mandela's rainbow nation if we are unequal in terms of wages."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.