Read this article in:
25 August, 2008
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in South Africa has hit hard on four deaths within a week at AngloGold and AngloPlatinum, pivotal proof that the country is in need of rigid safety regulations that hopefully will become law late this year.
During a week spanning 12 August to 17 August, safety performances by both AngloGold and AngloPlats sunk at the same time the Chamber of Mines lobbied against tougher criminal penalties and corporate liabilities. Those arguments came in discussions during public hearings of the proposed Mine Health and Safety Amendment Bill. A Chamber of Mines leader said such measures would undermine CEOs in their current focus on workplace safety.
At AngloGold, one worker was killed underground on 12 August in a mine collapse at Mponeng, while at TauTona, another miner was killed similarly, and two others were seriously injured. This happened on 15 August. At AngloPlats, majority owned by AngloAmerican, a company that sacked an AngloPlats CEO over safety performance, a fatality occurred at the Mogalakwena mine (16 August) and the Amandabult mine (18 August).
NUM Gen. Sec. Frans Baleni
AngloGold workers set up a Day of Mourning for 21 August, but it was met with a company “no work, no pay” rule, which infuriated the national NUM. “It is within our African culture to mourn and workers will continue to mourn for their deceased colleagues whether or not” the industry accepts the practice, said NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni.
AngloGold shut production at one of the two mines stricken by the worker fatalities, but AngloPlats continued production at both its mines. The NUM is pushing enactment of reform legislation that would lift maximum fines from R200,000 to R1 million on mining deaths, as well as place criminal liabilities on company officials.
Also in the NUM, a near month-long strike by 700 miners at UK-based Petra Diamonds Ltd.’s Heman mine ended on 19 August when the nation’s second largest diamond producer significantly rised wages. The company admitted during the strike that even though its wage offer was near the inflation rate of 12%, its wage proposal would still not lift salaries to national mining averages.
In other South African mining news, Energy and Minerals Minister Buyelwa Sonjica emphatically blasted activists who are attempting to block a titanium mining venture in the country’s remote western coastal regions. Speaking in favour of a project by the Australian company Minerals Resource Commodities and its South African subsidiary, Transworld Energy and Minerals, she said those opposing the project now should examine their own apartheid-era disinterest before they take up the mantle community activists.