Mining: a history of blood, sweat and tears
IT’S a bloody history, no matter which way you want to spin it.
For more than a century, labour on South African mines undermined the dignity of black people, treating them as disposable and not worthy of a living wage.
There is no doubt that a lot has changed since the days when a mineworker would go underground and his family would worry whether he would come back at all, dead or alive.
But the country is very far from reaching its goal of a mineworker being able to safely go underground and come back up unharmed.
Frans Baleni, former miner and National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) member, recalled the early days of working for Anglo American. At Western Holdings mine in 1979, he said, conditions were so bad in mines that no fewer than 1 000 people at some stage were killed underground every year. “We had no names,” he said. “As a mineworker you were given a number — and you were going to use that throughout your employment.
“And for strange reasons you will never forget that number,” said Baleni, as he recited his own — BC465089.
Upon being recruited as mineworkers, he said, people were stripped naked for an examination in front of each other. This was despite the taboo against naked men, especially elders, being in the same room.
“It was so humiliating. It was stripping off dignity from black people,” he said.
He recalls a strike by mineworkers in 1946 by about 100 000 black workers that was NO NAMES: Former worker Frans Baleni recounted how they were known by number only broken by the arrests of its leaders.
By the late 1970s not much had changed, Baleni said, and it was essential that action had to be taken against mining companies over the appalling working and living conditions and the poor salaries.
Turmoil in the industry followed, with strikes shaking the sector, particularly gold mines.
The 1986 gold mine strike — known as the 21-day strike — had the biggest impact. It was during this strike that mining companies, specifically Anglo American, first recognised a union.
Even so, nine workers were killed and 50 000 were dismissed by Anglo American.
The strike came not long after the Kinross Gold Mine disaster, which killed 177 mineworkers and injured 235.
The tragedy was caused by an acetylene tank catching fire and flames sweeping through the mine.
Baleni said: “What we got from that strike was not a salary increase, but we got a retirement fund, which black workers did not have.”
The industry has lived and suffered through many mining disasters, such as the tragedies in 1960 at Coalbrook, which killed 437 mineworkers, and in 1995 at Vaal Reefs Mine in which 105 mineworkers were killed.
More recently, 34 striking miners died in the Marikana massacre when policemen gunned them down near Lonmin’s platinum mine in 2012.
At Lily Mine last year, three workers were trapped when the mine collapsed. Their bodies have still not been recovered.
Mineworkers were recruited from around sub-Saharan Africa, including countries such as Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Lesotho.
The original recruiting company, TEBA, has expanded its reach to include training and social and financial services both during and post-employment.
Workers had to weigh 50kg to be allowed to work at the mines, and be able to get through high temperatures for four hours a day as a test of whether they could cope with the intense heat kilometres underground.
Baleni said he just made the mark, but had to eat that day TOUGH TIMES: Mine workers labour in a Carletonville gold mine in 1994. They risked their lives underground for a meagre living, while the minerals they produced played a major role in South Africa’s development. before getting on the scale.
“If someone does not know where we are coming from they would think that nothing has happened. I have personal experience of the conditions I was subjected to in 1979 and the salary I was getting.
“When I was dismissed in 1988, I was earning R340 a month, and that was a supervisory level. That same job today takes over R20 000 plus added benefits,” he said.
Much remained to be done and he was not saying that mineworkers had arrived, Baleni said.
“But I can say that on the road that we have travelled we must give credit to those who died, who fought and who were dismissed, to arrive where we are today.”
Labour unions were supposed to be the saviours of mineworkers, but after a few years of fighting the good fight their leaders fell for the allure of managerial positions and job oppor“Engage tunities.
Baleni said unions had been weakened by fragmentation and were not fighting for the exploited.
with employers, but know that our relationship [with them] is a permanent contradiction,” he said.
However, he was hopeful that there would still be improvement for mining companies and the communities in which they operate.
Baleni bemoaned the fact that there were no monuments to commemorate the part mineworkers played in advancing South Africa’s industrialisation.
“For me, mineworkers really contributed with their lives. You can’t see a monument to that.”
Give credit to those who fought to get where we are It was so humiliating. It was stripping off dignity