South African Miner's strike

[C. Flower]

Not only in South Africa. Thousands of miners have died in China.

We all rely on their work.

The politics of the current strike.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...tu-s-vavi-says

[Andrew49]

While a wage gap between mineworkers and senior managers can be accepted based on the need for incentive for self-improvement, reward for education and innovation, responsibility of operations and influence on results, it is in no way justified that workers can earn less than R10 000, while top management can take home more than ten times this amount.

Many studies have shown that while chief executives have a large role to play, they have a limited influence on a firm’s success and results are more strongly determined by market factors and the work ethic of the employees.

The Lonmin incident has shown that low inequality is not just a “nice to have” but a crucial building block of a healthy economy. South Africa frequently tops the list as the country with the greatest income inequality in the world, and the result is public and economic unrest.

Massacre is end result of growing inequality

The wage gap between those who work in these mines and the managers is said to be obscene.

[Andrew49]

Workers arrested at South Africa's Marikana mine will be charged with the murder of 34 of their colleagues shot dead by police, an official has said. A prosecuting authority spokesman told the BBC that 270 workers would be tried under the "common purpose" doctrine. Source

Post-mortem examinations revealed that most of the 34 victims of the police action on August 16 were shot in the back while a smaller number were shot while facing forward, Johannesburg's Star newspaper reported citing sources close to the investigation. Source

The intention seems to me to be to humiliate striking miners and their community.

[fluffybiscuits]

Workers arrested at South Africa's Marikana mine will be charged with the murder of 34 of their colleagues shot dead by police, an official has said. A prosecuting authority spokesman told the BBC that 270 workers would be tried under the "common purpose" doctrine. Source

Post-mortem examinations revealed that most of the 34 victims of the police action on August 16 were shot in the back while a smaller number were shot while facing forward, Johannesburg's Star newspaper reported citing sources close to the investigation. Source

The intention seems to me to be to humiliate striking miners and their community.

They seem intent on making an example of them. The cops shot them and then they are trying the miners. Where is the justice?

[C. Flower]

While a wage gap between mineworkers and senior managers can be accepted based on the need for incentive for self-improvement, reward for education and innovation, responsibility of operations and influence on results, it is in no way justified that workers can earn less than R10 000, while top management can take home more than ten times this amount.

Many studies have shown that while chief executives have a large role to play, they have a limited influence on a firm’s success and results are more strongly determined by market factors and the work ethic of the employees.

The Lonmin incident has shown that low inequality is not just a “nice to have” but a crucial building block of a healthy economy. South Africa frequently tops the list as the country with the greatest income inequality in the world, and the result is public and economic unrest.

Massacre is end result of growing inequality

The wage gap between those who work in these mines and the managers is said to be obscene.

It has been acknowledged over and over again that a low wage economy, with a small caste of mega rich, becomes sclerotic, and less and less successful and productive. But it is an inherent trait of the system for big fish to swallow smaller ones, and for inequality to get worse.

The only this that has temporarily reversed this at times has been trade union organisation, and militant strike action, or threat of it.

The S.A. miners know what they are doing. It is really horrible that the cost in human life has been so high.

[Spectabilis]

The bizarre decision by the National Prosecuting Authority to arrest the miners and charge them under the common purpose law is being challenged.

Justice Minister, Jeff Radebe, has questioned their actions and appointed a Judicial Commission under Justice Nomgcobo Jiba to explain ‘the rationale’ behind the decision.

http://mg.co.za/article/2012-08-31-radebe-npa-must-explain-marikana-murder-charges

[Jolly Red Giant]

Interesting article from South African academic and labour activist Martin Lagassick who visited Marikana last week.

Among other things he notes the following -

The media have highlighted police shooting automatic weapons at striking mineworkers running toward them from the rocky kopje where they were camped, and bodies falling to the ground dead. The police had erected a line of razor wire, with a 5-metre gap in it, through which some mineworkers were attempting to return to Enkanini to escape teargas and water cannon directed at them from behind.

Researchers from the University of Johannesburg (not journalists, to their shame) have revealed that the main killing did not take place there. Most strikers had dispersed in the opposite direction from Enkanini, trying to escape the police. At a kopje situated behind the hill-camp there are remnants of pools of blood. Police markers in yellow paint on this “killing kopje” show where corpses were removed: there are labels with letters at least up to “J.” Shots were fired from helicopters to kill other escaping workers, and some strikers, mineworkers report, were crushed by police Nyalas (armoured vehicles). Within days the whole area was swept clean by police of rubber bullets, bullet casings and tear-gas canisters. Only patches of burned grass are visible, the remains of police fires used to obscure evidence of deaths.

There are still workers missing, unaccounted for in official body counts. The death toll is almost certainly higher than 34.

The cumulative evidence is that this was not panicky police firing at workers they believed were about to attack them armed with machetes and sticks. Why otherwise leave a narrow gap in the razor wire? Why kill workers running away from the police lines? It was premeditated murder by a militarized police force to crush the strike, which must have been ordered from higher up the chain of command. This is further confirmed by autopsies which reveal that most of the workers were shot in the back (Cape Times, 27/8/2012).

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/689.php

[Kev Bar]

Interesting article from South African academic and labour activist Martin Lagassick who visited Marikana last week.

Among other things he notes the following -

The media have highlighted police shooting automatic weapons at striking mineworkers running toward them from the rocky kopje where they were camped, and bodies falling to the ground dead. The police had erected a line of razor wire, with a 5-metre gap in it, through which some mineworkers were attempting to return to Enkanini to escape teargas and water cannon directed at them from behind.

Researchers from the University of Johannesburg (not journalists, to their shame) have revealed that the main killing did not take place there. Most strikers had dispersed in the opposite direction from Enkanini, trying to escape the police. At a kopje situated behind the hill-camp there are remnants of pools of blood. Police markers in yellow paint on this “killing kopje” show where corpses were removed: there are labels with letters at least up to “J.” Shots were fired from helicopters to kill other escaping workers, and some strikers, mineworkers report, were crushed by police Nyalas (armoured vehicles). Within days the whole area was swept clean by police of rubber bullets, bullet casings and tear-gas canisters. Only patches of burned grass are visible, the remains of police fires used to obscure evidence of deaths.

There are still workers missing, unaccounted for in official body counts. The death toll is almost certainly higher than 34.

The cumulative evidence is that this was not panicky police firing at workers they believed were about to attack them armed with machetes and sticks. Why otherwise leave a narrow gap in the razor wire? Why kill workers running away from the police lines? It was premeditated murder by a militarized police force to crush the strike, which must have been ordered from higher up the chain of command. This is further confirmed by autopsies which reveal that most of the workers were shot in the back (Cape Times, 27/8/2012).

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/689.php

That is interesting.

[Mick Tully]

The great Mandela claimed victory for his people when released, became president retired with an increased pension, then sat back and enjoyed life at the expense of the people that fought for him. The state never changed, it just continued on in its corrupt entity. The miners charged are charged under an old apartheid law. So much for freedom, something like what we inherited in our new republic.

[Kev Bar]

The great Mandela claimed victory for his people when released, became president retired with an increased pension, then sat back and enjoyed life at the expense of the people that fought for him. The state never changed, it just continued on in its corrupt entity. The miners charged are charged under an old apartheid law. So much for freedom, something like what we inherited in our new republic.

Well this is striking:

Historically the National Union of Mineworkers, with a present membership of some 300,000, born in the struggle against apartheid, has represented mineworkers. It has a proud history of struggle, including the 1987 mineworkers strike, led by Cyril Ramaphosa. But since 1994 it has increasingly colluded with the bosses. At Lonmin it had a two-year wage agreement for 8 to 10 per cent annual increases.

Cyril Ramaphosa, former general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), who is now a director of Lonmin, recently bought a rare buffalo for R18-million, a fact contemptuously highlighted by Marikana workers when he donated R2-million for their funeral expenses.

[Saoirse go Deo]

I can't get my head around the fact that the miners are being charged for the murder of the people the police shot... plain mad.

[Jolly Red Giant]

I can't get my head around the fact that the miners are being charged for the murder of the people the police shot... plain mad.

The cops are using an archaic law from the time of British Imperial rule.

[Mick Tully]

The cops are using an archaic law from the time of British Imperial rule.

Nothing has changed with freedom.

[Spectabilis]

In an article in yesterday’s Mail & Guardian (SA), James Grant points out that the common purpose law is associated with the apartheid era ( not the colonial era) and was affirmed by the constitutional court as recently as 2003.

However, he states that “The facts, from the little one may glean, seem to me to indicate that the killing of the 34 was a state-sanctioned massacre.”

http://mg.co.za/article/2012-08-31-marikana-common-purpose-not-outdated-or-defunct

[Spectabilis]

Good news in that the miners are being released. Some tomorrow after their court hearing and others on Sep 12 'once their addresses were confirmed'. Charges have been withdrawn, but only pending the report of the Judicial Enquiry.


http://mg.co.za/article/2012-09-02-m...ners-withdrawn