Vavi is calling for a secondary commission

FORMER Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi yesterday called for a secondary commission on living conditions of mineworkers.

This comes after the Farlam Commission of Inquiry did not address underlying issues that led to the killing of 34 mineworkers on August 16, 2012, he added.

Vavi, who was axed in March for gross misconduct and his failure to perform his duties, was speaking during a panel discussion on the merits of the commission in Johannesburg where he said there was no justice or truth from it.

A secondary commission into the underlying issues that led to the unprotected strike in Lonmin’s Marikana mine should be carried out, he said.

“The reality is that we are not in a better condition to understand the underlying reasons for the strike,” Vavi said.

“Workers go through daily humiliation of sharing single sex hostels and they are victims of mashonisas (loan sharks). By the time they went on strike they had nothing to lose. They are not earning because they are deeply indebted. That is why we need a commission of inquiry that must look at the living conditions,” he said.

Appeal

Turning to fragmentation within the trade union movement, Vavi appealed to union bosses to build genuine unions as the unprotected strike in mid-August 2012 broke out because workers were unrepre- sented by their union.

“We need independent unions that are militant and focused on the interest of their members,” he said. Vavi previously attempted to intervene in a similar wildcat strike by rock drill operators at Impala Platinum in February 2012.

He said politics within the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) had frustrated his intervention in resolving the Impala strike and later the strike at Lonmin.

“There was a genuine griev- ance by the workers, but there was too much focus on politics and less about conditions of work within the NUM. The whole thing should not have happened. It was an indictment on the union for not taking up their grievances… you cannot hide behind the two-year agreement,” said Vavi.

President Jacob Zuma appointed the commission to investigate the events before and after the deaths of 44 people during the wildcat strike at the Lonmin mine.

Retired judge Ian Farlam chaired the commission whose work spanned 300 days which criticised Lonmin’s implementation of its social and labour plan. It also said the company had failed to provide sufficient safety for its employees, in particular non-striking workers.

The company required that they report for duty despite the violent strike.

The commission had found that NUM had not exercised effective control over its members during the 2012 strike. It also encouraged non-striking members to report for work at Lonmin despite the real danger that they could be killed or injured by armed strikers.

Turning to the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), the commission found that the union had not exercised its members and supporters to act in a lawful manner. Joseph Mathunjwa, the president of the Amcu, said that the union membership had mandated the union to have a review of the commission findings.

The union held a feedback meeting on the findings of the commission in Marikana on Sunday. page 14