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29 January, 2007
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in South Africa gave Impala Platinum a seven-day ultimatum to respond to demands to improve health care services at the Impala Mine Hospital near Rustenberg, North West State.
The ultimatum was given when miners staged a 23 January march on the hospital. NUM is protesting unfair and inferior treatment of union members at the facility. The union also accuses mine management, doctors, and hospital administrators of denying antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for treatment of HIV-AIDS.
“We … condemn the collusion by both the management of Impala Mine and Impala Hospital that seeks to marginalize those not falling with a particular medical aid,” NUM said in a statement last week.
The collusion includes charges that managers and medical facilitators make gravely ill staff continue working underground, failing which, they are terminated with insufficient severance money.
The NUM’s demands include dismissal of doctors who are denying ARV treatments. The union also cites a host of incidents in which inferior health care was given. NUM said that if the demands were not addressed by 30 January, rolling industrial action would begin.
Impala Platinum employs some 26,000 workers in South Africa.
At another platinum mine in the country, NUM union members began a strike on 26 January. Over 2,000 miners downed tools at Modikwa Platinum in Limpopo, Northern State, demanding an end to racism.
The NUM branch there states that both pay and working conditions for white workers is better than that of black workers. The branch union also charges that recruitment and hiring procedures are not evenly applied.
The strike began at 06h00 last Friday, and branch leaders were expecting to meet with Modikwa’s management later that day.