Marikana

By Patrick Bond and Steve Zeltser - Labor Video Projecte, March 19, 2023

By Marienna Pope-Weidemann - Red Pepper, October 13, 2017

The fatal police shooting of 37 striking workers at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine in August 2012 was the worst recorded instance of police violence in post-apartheid South Africa. Five years on, there have been no prosecutions and no real improvements – no compensation for the families living in grief and dire poverty.

There has also been no apology, although staggeringly Lonmin has created a commercial out of the incident. But as always with the Marikana story, the most important characters were left out.

A few weeks after the massacre there was another death in the community. Amidst a brutal crackdown Paulina Masuhlo, a powerful community leader, died after being shot by police. Paulina’s death helped galvanise the birth of Sikhala Sonke, a grassroots social justice group led by the women of Marikana.

As well as demanding criminal prosecution for the killings and compensation for the families, Sikhala Sonke also carries forward the demands those workers died for: a living wage and dignified conditions.

By Thumeka Magwangqana and Primrose Sonti - Open Democracy, August 16, 2017

Five years ago today, 34 mine workers were shot dead in South Africa during a bitter dispute with British firm Lonmin. Today their community is taking their demands for accountability to the firm’s HQ.

In August 2012, mine workers at British company Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine in South Africa went on strike to demand the living wage. In the week leading up to 16 August, the workers tried to access the managers’ offices but they were pushed back by security. This was where the battle began.

Pushed back from the managers’ offices, the mine workers decided to go to the koppie, a small mountain near Lonmin’s mine, outside the company’s premises. They were there for a few days waiting for management to reply to their demands, and the rest of us in the community were not allowed to go near them. Every day when the men came down from that mountain, we asked them to tell us what was going on. Ten people were killed between 12 – 14 August, including two police officers.

We watched what was happening on TV constantly and in the afternoon of 15 August, we saw a crowd of people. Horses and police officers were growing in number on the koppie and, as women and leaders of the community, we were very upset. We were waiting for good news, for the management to make good decisions.

Early in the morning of 16 August, we saw the barbed wire encircling the koppie and we knew that people there were going to die. We collected the women of the community and, as leaders, we said that we should go straight to Lonmin management and tell them that if they didn’t want to give the mine workers the extra money, then it was better that we take them home because the situation had become so bad.

We collected the women and when we met near the mountain, we were too late. We heard the bullets, and then the ambulances.

Thirty-four mine workers were shot dead.

We couldn’t get there afterwards, there was a large crowd and we were told not go there, that it was very hectic. We turned back and didn’t sleep that night. Early in the morning, we went to see the police at the koppie and were fighting with them, trying everything. Then we cried.

We went to the police stations and hospitals to look for the missing. We were looking for a guy that was staying in the yard of one of our houses. He didn’t come back and we weren’t sure if he died or was in hospital or jail.

By staff - Amnesty International, August 16, 2016

Since 2012 Amnesty International has commented and campaigned on the serious policing failures that led to the deaths at Marikana, calling for full accountability and reparations for the victims and their families. That work continues.

This report examines abuses of the right to adequate housing of mine workers at Lonmin’s Marikana mine operation. Its primary focus is an examination of Lonmin’s response to the findings of the Farlam Commission.

In this regard it looks both at what Lonmin has done and what the company has said about the situation.

Read the text (PDF).

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, June 30, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Story:

• With union support, indigenous people confront fracking in Argentina - By Adolfo Aguirre, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, June 25, 2015
• Someone Has to Sort Your Recycling, and It’s a Disgusting and Dangerous Job - By Michelle Chen, The Nation, June 24, 2015
• Report: Recycling Workers Exposed to Safety Failures, Needles, High Injury Rates - Press Release, Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, June 23, 2015
• Resistance Is Needed to End Corporate Toxic Zones - Eric Loomis interviewed by Mark Karlin, Truthout, June 21, 2015

Green Bans:

• Labor, community unite in protest against Monster in the Mission - By Tim Redmond, 48 Hills, June 23, 2015
• Union workers to rally at ParkMerced - By Tim Redmond, 48 Hills, April 22, 2015

Bread and Roses:

• Fruit Company Will Pay $330,000 To Farmworkers Who Got Fired After Reporting Sexual Abuse - By Esther Yu-Hsi Lee, Think Progress, June 26, 2015

An Injury to One is an Injury to All:

• South African commission finds police to blame in Marikana deaths - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, June 25, 2015
• The Face of the Coal Industry - By Nick Mullins, The Thoughtful Coal Miner, June 24, 2015
• New Top Chemical Safety Board Lawyer Suing His Own Agency; Federal Lawsuit Seeking $300,000 + May Receive Sudden Sweetheart Settlement - By Kirsten Stade, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, June 24, 2015
• Psychosocial and musculoskeletal risk factors the most widespread in Europe’s workplaces - Press Release, European Trade Union Institute, June 24, 2015
• Department of Energy Cites UT-Battelle, LLC, For Worker Safety And Health Program Violations - By U.S. Department of Energy, Breaking Energy, June 23, 2015
• Flight attendants sue Boeing over 'toxic fumes' on Alaska Airlines jet - By Hugo Martin, Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2015; [related]: Is Aircraft Cabin Air Toxic? - By Gini Harrison, The Conversation, June 20, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Exterran closing Broussard oil, gas equipment plant, laying off 76; Broussard plant laying off 76 total employees - By Bill Lodge, The Advocate, June 28, 2015
• New PBS Documentary Exposes Human Toll Of Oil Boomtown In North Dakota - By Mike Gaworecki, DeSmog Blog, June 26, 2015
• BHP cuts another 140 jobs over abandoned Olympic Dam expansion plans - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, June 25, 2015
• Are Coal, Oil and Gas the Subprime Assets of the Future? - By Dan Zegart, DeSmog Blog, June 24, 2015
• EIA: Oil layoffs aren’t finished yet - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, June 23, 2015
• APM Terminals to close operations, cut more than 100 port jobs near Houston - By Jordan Blum, FuelFix, June 22, 2015
• Caterpillar lets go of 50 workers - By Michael Allan McCrae, Mining.Com, June 22, 2015

Just Transition:

• Business lobbies, unions join push for zero emissions targets - By Giles Parkinson, ReNew Economy, June 29, 2015
• Ontario Teachers' Pension Expands Ownership Of BluEarth Renewables - By Staff, North American Windpower, June 26, 2015
• Toronto march to merge economic justice and climate action - By Martin Lukacs, The Guardian, June 25, 2015
• Join the actions for Jobs, Justice and the Climate on July 4 and 5! - By Andrea Harden-Donahue, Rabble.Ca, June 24, 2015
• Investment In Renewable Energy Yields More Jobs Than Fossil Fuel Sector - By Joshua S Hill, Clean Technica, June 23, 2015

Other News:

• South Africa’s gold workers 'unimpressed' with 13% pay rise offer - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, June 29, 2015; [related]: South African gold sector to table wage offer next week - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, June 24, 2015
• Strike at Marathon Petroleum refinery ends - By Andrea Rumbaugh, FuelFix, June 23, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC; Hashtags: #greenunionism #greensyndicalism #IWW

By David Smith - The Guardian, June 19, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

A South African company has built a drone designed to shower pepper spray on unruly crowds and says it has begun supplying units to an international mining company.

Desert Wolf claims it wants to help in "preventing another Marikana" – a reference to a protest in August 2012 at which 34 striking mineworkers were shot and killed during clashes with the police.

But the "Skunk Riot Control Copter" was condemned by labour activists as "absolutely outrageous" and compared with deadly US military drones in Pakistan.

By Skyler Reid - San Francisco Bay View, May 27, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Marikana, South Africa – Nomfanelo Jali stirs porridge she hopes will quell her children’s chronic hunger. Food has been scarce since her husband joined 80,000 workers on strike with South Africa’s main mineworkers’ union, AMCU.

“It’s very difficult,” Jali said. “None of us has got food.”

The strike, now four months long, is the longest – and costliest – in the nation’s history. Platinum production in the country accounts for 40 percent of the global market, and the work stoppage has pushed up the price of the metal worldwide.

But workers say they’re determined to hold out until they get the raise they’re asking for – more than double what they currently earn.

Skyler Reid is a Freelance photographer and journalist based in the Johannesburg area of South Africa. His goal is to find new ways to make people interested in news stories, by introducing characters and narratives that can capture the interest of those who are turned off by the basic news formula. He can be reached via Twitter @skyreid. This story and video first appeared on GlobalPost.

By Jérôme Roos - Notes toward an International Libertarian Eco-Socialism, November 12, 2013

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Author's Introduction: In light of the recent death of Nelson Mandela, the “father” of post-Apartheid South Africa, I am reposting this excellent reflection by Jérôme E. Roos on a recent trip to the country.  The essay was originally published in Reflections on a Revolution (ROAR) on 12 November 2013.

Twenty years after apartheid, the old freedom fighters of the ANC have come to reproduce the same structures of oppression against which they once arose.

We were driving down the N3 highway on our way back home from the Eastern port city of Durban, passing by the endless lines of improvised shacks that constitute the Katlehong township just outside Johannesburg, when we saw the flashing blue lights of a police car in the distance. As we approached, a horrific scene revealed itself. A local slumdweller, probably somewhere in his thirties, lay dead on the side of the road, his body awkwardly twisted into an impossible position, his eyes still wide open. Some two hundred meters ahead, a car had pulled over on the curb, its driver casually leaning on the vehicle while talking to a policeman. No one had even bothered to cover up the body. This man just lay there like a dead animal — another road kill in endless wave of needlessly extinguished lives.

Every year, more than 14.000 people are killed on the road in South Africa, an average of 38 per day — nearly half of whom are pedestrians. Of the other half, many die as overloaded buses, micro-vans or so-called bakkies crash during the daily commute from the townships to the city to work as waiters, clerks or house maids. Just today, a bus full of commuters slammed into a truck on a narrow and potholed road to Pretoria, killing 29. But in the aggregate, tragedies like these are only numbers in a cold statistical series. The front pages of the country’s newspapers remain splattered with horror stories and graphic photos of brutal killings, as fifty people are murdered daily. Another 770 people die from AIDS every day. A total of 5.7 million, or 18% of South Africans, is HIV/AID infected, the highest infection rate in the world. Needless to say, one of the bloody red lines that runs through the broken social fabric of this heartbreakingly beautiful country is that human life is accorded shockingly little value.