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)
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