South African workers launch massive strikes

Clare Nullis

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — The worst strike in 18 years to hit South Africa’s key gold industry is part of a wave of industrial unrest involving airline staff, shop assistants and municipal workers angry that the economic benefits of apartheid’s demise have been slow to filter down.

Union leaders say there is rising ire at the growing gap between top management with their seven-figure salaries and workers earning around $4,700.

“In terms of pay differentials, South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world,” said Patrick Craven, spokesman for the Congress of South African Trade Unions.

COSATU has also taken up the cause of the growing number of unemployed, a major reason for the persistent poverty plaguing South Africa’s black majority.

Unions argue the official jobless rate of about 27 percent underestimates the true extent of the problem because it does not take into account people who have given up looking for work.

A certain number of strikes is common at this time of year, when unions are locked in negotiations with employers. But this year’s action is the most widespread since the country’s first all-race elections in 1994 ushered in a period of relative labor harmony.

“The way that workers in the formal economy see it, the apples are not falling in their basket,” said Wyand Louw at the University of Cape Town’s Institute for Social Development.

“On the one hand, we have a glorious macro-economic Christmas tree lighting up, and on the other hand, we have the total alienation of the non-working community,” he said. “In between, we have the workers who also feel they are not reaping the benefits.”

Chris Hart, senior treasury economist with the ABSA banking group, echoed that analysis.

“The different treatment that top management are getting in companies relative to the work force has been the catalyst,” Hart said.

President Thabo Mbeki voiced support Wednesday for a strong trade union role to narrow the gap between rich and poor, black and white, but said this would take time because “we inherited such a disaster.”

He said he witnessed the legacy of white racist rule for himself during a flight Tuesday, the South African Press Association reported.

“I had the opportunity to see the country from the air and I could see apartheid,” Mbeki was quoted as telling the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union. “I could see where the rich white people live, and next to it where the poor black people live.”

His government has not sought to interfere in the strikes.

They have included a strike by South African Airways ground staff and cabin crew that grounded most flights for nearly a week last month. Pick ‘n Pay, a major supermarket chain, was also hit by industrial action.

On Monday, municipal workers launched an indefinite and rowdy strike. About 500 of them threw rocks, lumps of concrete and bottles at police and dumped mounds of garbage in Cape Town during a march on Wednesday.

The miners’ strike is costing the gold industry — the world’s largest — about $20.2 million a day in lost production.

More than 70 percent of South Africa’s 130,000 gold miners are taking party in the strike that started Sunday. They typically earn just over $388 per month — about the same as municipal workers

Unions have demanded pay raises of between 8 percent and 12 percent, depending on the worker’s position. The Chamber of Mines, which negotiates on behalf of employers, increased its offers Wednesday to between 6 percent and 7 percent.

Leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers and Solidarity union were considering the offer Thursday.

“We are much closer than we were before with the employers,” NUM spokesman Moferefere Lekorotsoana said.

AngloGlold Ashanti, the world’s No. 2 producer, Harmony Gold Mining Co. and Gold Fields Ltd. have also pursued individual talks with the unions. But they maintain that with inflation well under 5 percent, workers can no longer expect as high increases as in previous years.

A third union, the United Association of South Africa, had been threatening to join the strike Friday, but expressed optimism an agreement might be reached.

The mining industry has been badly hurt by the strength of the rand, which makes its exports more expensive, and has cut jobs on a massive scale — adding to the list of ills catalogued by unions.

“It doesn’t make sense to have the lowest of the low expected to make sacrifices all the time,” Lekorotsoana said.

One of the main grievances is over accommodation. The unions say 70 percent of gold miners still live in single-sex hostels, a hated symbol of the apartheid era that ripped families apart.

The companies have committed to providing family style accommodation, but say they need time to achieve this. In the meantime, AngloGold Ashanti is proposing to increase its allowance for miners renting their own accommodation to $155 a month by the end of next year.

While the waive of industrial unrest is unprecedented in recent years, analysts say it does not compare to the violent strikes of the 1980s that were directed against apartheid.

Eddy Webster, a labor relations expert at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said strikes are a natural part of a modern industrialized society and are unlikely to deter foreign investment.

(Associated Press)