The migrant labour system is partly responsible for the Marikana tragedy, and South Africa’s Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe is steaming ahead with plans to make radical changes to the working model that keeps mineworkers away from their rural homes for 12 months at a time.

The South African mining industry, which has always relied heavily on the migrant labour system, is now reaching consensus about bringing about even short-term changes, the Deputy President reports.

Motlanthe, who was speaking at a forum at Alexander Forbes last Friday, says the decision to pay living-out allowances in the troubled platinum belt has worsened the already problematic migrant system.

The normal arrangement is for mineworkers to be recruited from the rural areas of South Africa and its neighbouring States and to work for 12 months and then go home for two weeks and then return for another 12 months.

In the past, virtually all of these migrants lived in single-sex compounds, itself a highly undesirable practice.

But when living-out allowances began being paid, many opted to move out of the single-sex hostels into near-mine informal settlements, only to find that the R1 800 paid to live out can be consumed pretty quickly.

Because of being migrants, they also have to remit part of their wages to their families in the villages of the so-called labour-forwarding areas.

Meanwhile, many of the younger workers start second families in the settlements in and around the mines.

This results in increasing financial pressure, which often results in workers being blinded by the lure of loan sharks, who have their own rules.

The rates of interest that they charge is in the realm of 100% monthly so that if they give a cash-strapped mineworker a loan of R300 this month, they expect R600 back on the next payday, which pushes the workers into deep debt.

“Those are the circumstances that make them amenable to any fanciful scheme that anyone wants to sell to them,” the Deputy President recounts.

They gladly join pyramid schemes, gambling syndicates and any number of “service providers”.

Union shop stewards at Lonmin platinum mines in particular managed to persuade management that they should have a say in deciding which service providers should be officially appointed.

These shop stewards started collecting “rent” from service providers.

“So, shop stewards were running a racket, as it were, and completely ignored their responsibilities to their members,” Motlanthe explains.

As a consequence, they completely disaffected their membership and members left the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and formed workers committees outside the NUM in order to pursue their interests.

Rockdrill Operators

Rockdrill operators, unskilled workers who drill the rockface according to the markings of the engineering geological team, know that there will be no production if they stop drilling.

All the skilled work becomes superfluous without the rockdrill operators drilling and the proposal that they should demand take-home pay of R12 500 a month was appealing, given that many of them were in debt.

So they withdrew their labour power.

“And, of course, all hell broke lose,” Motlanthe recalls.

They left all the rules behind and established their own rules, which had no regard for the law, which led to clashes.

“They could only rely on intimidation to get the rest of the workers to join in,” he adds.

Currently, the Inter-Ministerial Committee under the leadership of the Deputy President is making every effort to coax the errant workers back within the laid-down legal framework of law and order so that all unions and workers can peacefully coexist.

Amenities Partnership

Following government’s conversation with the mining houses on the migrant labour issue, mining houses have agreed that migrant labour must be radically modified and gradually phased out.

Shift arrangements are being considered and the provision of transport to and from labour-forwarding areas at considerable frequency is under consideration (see also Two-Minute Interview with this article).

Government is prepared to enter into an amenities partnership to ensure that all ameni- ties and social infrastructure is provided for in the labour-forwarding areas.

The overwhelming consensus is that an amenities partnership of that nature can be set in motion in the short term.

The idea is to go ahead with it as companies ready themselves to do so.

Motlanthe wants to “steam ahead” with those that have indicated their readiness for immediate action, with others falling into line later.

All mining stakeholders were scheduled to convene on July 3 to sign off on the collaborative draft document to ensure peace and stability in the sector. (Also see Two-Minute Interview with this article)

“I can assure you that, on July 3, all parties will sign off on the document,” the Deputy President said in response to Mining Weekly’s questions.

The industry is also committed to continue to meet quarterly over the next 12 months, or as frequently as required, under the leadership of the Deputy President, to ensure common action to address blockages and new issues should they arise.

Tidying up the Document

A small team was hard at work making the necessary changes to the draft framework agreement on sustainable mining at the time of going to press.
Last Friday, Motlanthe said he was going off to do so straight after leaving the Alexander Forbes building, in Sandton.

The Deputy Presidential spokesperson Thabo Masebe told Mining Weekly that the media would be called in to witness the signing ceremony.

There was also a good indication of the reform momentum that Motlanthe is building up when the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) requested the Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration that the arbitration was to conduct with Lonmin on June 26 be postponed in deference to the Deputy President’s intervention.

Moreover, Motlanthe told AMLive anchor Xolani Gwala during a SAfm national radio debate last week that AMCU and Lonmin had found a meeting point that would forestall a strike, despite AMCU treasurer Jimmy Gama later responding to Mining Weekly that the strike was still pending.
Lonmin and AMCU headed to arbitration after failing to agree on a new majority union recognition agreement providing AMCU with full organisational rights.

“The company is striving to reach an agreement which is in the best interests of all its employees and has made reasonable offers in discussions with AMCU in an attempt to achieve this,” Lonmin said in a statement, adding that continued negotiations would result in a resolution.

AMCU is now said to represent 70% of Lonmin’s 28 000 mineworkers, having wrested majority membership from the once-dominant NUM.

On June 14, AMCU was part of a gathering of mining’s who’s who where all parties recog- nised mining’s centrality to South Africa’s economy and job creation, as well as the need to strengthen the sector in the current difficult global economic conditions.

Attendees also agreed that it was crucial to ensure law and order and to end violence and conflict.

The industry’s repositioning as an attractive investment destination was also high on the agenda.

The who’s who present agreed to respond to the immediate poor economic situation in mining and identify long-term policy measures, including creating certainty in sector regulations and tax policy and accelerating the implementation of human settlement intervention to ensure that there is proper mineworker housing.

At the same time, government committed itself to legislative and regulatory programmes that provide predictability and certainty for the mining industry.
Motlanthe dismissed the towering demands of the NUM and AMCU ahead of the July 11 wage talks for the gold mining industry as opening gambits.

AMCU has demanded 150% increases for all entry-level underground gold mine mineworkers as minimum pay, and an even bigger 159% increase for newcomers performing surface functions – significantly outdoing the NUM’s 60% for rockdrill operators.

AMCU general secretary Jeffrey Mphahlele said in a document released to Mining Weekly that the union had set the entry-level minimum for all underground workers at R12 500 a month across all gold companies and at R11 500 a month for surface workers.

The current agreed entry-level wage for underground gold mine workers is R5 000 a month, with R4 350 to R4 439 a month paid to surface workers.

Entry-level workers in manufacturing earn R4 534 a month and civil engineering workers start at R3 994 a month.

Eighty five per cent of gold employees are underground employees and 15% are surface employees.

In prior years, South Africa’s Chamber of Mines granted miners, artisans and officials percentage increases in the 7.5% to 10% range but, with the industry under water, not even that is likely this time around, which will severely test the latest peace accord.