Nationalise the mines! Punish those who killed the miners.
“Expecting us to go back is like an insult. Many of our friends and colleagues are dead, then they expect us to resume work. Never.” Miner Zachariah Mbewu told South Africa’s Mail & Guardian. The strike, which includes 3,000 rock drillers, demanded a wage increases from 4,000 rand (£306) a month to 12,500 rand a month.
Lonmin, the company that owns the Marikana platinum mine in South Africa, threatened to sack any miner who did not return to work on 20 August, after 34 miners had been killed by the South African police just days before. The police said that the water cannon, rubber bullets, teargas and stun grenades that they used against the miners had no effect, so they decided to use live ammunition.
Julius Malema, former leader of the youth wing of the ANC, spoke at a mass meeting of miners after the shootings and demanded the nationalisation of the British mine to huge applause from the crowd.
Lonmin was formed from a British multinational, Lonrho, led by Tiny Rowland, who developed Lonrho’s South African holdings during the years of the Apartheid government. In 1999 the company changed and became a platinum metal group in South Africa. It is listed in the FTSE 250 Index.
Class collaboration
NUM membership has declined from 66 per cent to 49 per cent at the Lonmin mines and it has lost its negotiating rights. Its secretary, Frans Baleni, is a more strident critic of the nationalization of mines than many business leaders and has had conflicts with miners for sometime.
{module Propaganda 30 anos}Communist parties such as the South African Communist Party and the Morning Star/Communist Party of Britain have tried to shift the blame for the miners’ deaths in South Africa onto the AMCU (Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union – a new and developing miners’ union) and not the police and the state.
The Morning star said, “National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) secretary general Frans Baleni put the toll at 36 and blamed the unrest on the rival Association of Mineworkers and Communication Union making promises which could never be delivered and, in the process, organizing an illegal action which led to the loss of lives” (August 19).
AMCU secretary Jeff Mphahlele said his union did not encourage violence and was not responsible. “We have been recruiting across the country and have at times been met with resistance. Four of our members were shot at in Marikana, but they never retaliated. ”
The Morning Star reports criticism of the demand for trebling wages as an extravagant demand and condemned the strike as “illegal action”, thus condemning the workers’ class struggle in general and in particular the miners.
According to the leader of AMCU Mathunjwa, “This is an infight of the members of NUM with their officials. It’s got nothing to do with AMCU…workers on the koppie where the massacre took place were largely disgruntled NUM members who had lost faith in their union representatives. ”
Why would communist parties and the National Union of Mineworkers say that workers’ demands are extravagant? Why do they try to shift blame onto another union for the actions of the police?
There are close ties between the NUM, the SACP, the African National Congress government and often the multinationals. The ANC government is in alliance with the NUM-affiliated national union confederation COSATU. One previous NUM leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, is a ANC heavyweight and business tycoon, and sits on Lonmin’s board.
That is the source of the violence and explosive situations that are now occurring.
Nationalisation
The demand for the nationalisation of the mines is gathering mass approval by miners and mining communities. Just as with the Spanish or the Chilean mines, the only way to safeguard miners’ wages and conditions is nationalisation, but not for the benefit of the state. Miners and communities who have experienced terrible conditions, with the loss of lives and low wages, have won many times over the right to put the mines under their control for the benefit of themselves and workers everywhere.
British workers should condemn the actions of Lonmin and the police, and support the call for the nationalization of the mines.
