By Devon Maylie
JOHANNESBURG--The violent strike at Lonmin PLC's (LMI.LN)
platinum mine in South Africa is a warning for the mining sector as
a whole, the country's minister of mineral resources said Monday,
as she advocated stricter compliance measures to force companies to
address the living conditions of their workforce.
The deadly protests at Lonmin's Marikana mine and the subsequent
shooting of 34 demonstrators, have drawn withering criticism of
President Jacob Zuma's government and renewed debates about the
government's effectiveness in reducing the high levels of
unemployment and inequality in the country.
"The Marikana issue should not be viewed in isolation to all
other inadequacies of our beloved mining industry," Susan Shabangu
said, speaking at a business breakfast laid on by The New Age.
At the heart of the strikes, which have spread from Lonmin, are
workers who "are becoming increasingly impatient" and who are
looking at their lives 18 years after the first democratic
elections in the country and are "beginning to wonder if indeed
their livelihoods have not deteriorated further into the dungeons
of poverty," said Ms. Shabangu.
The minister said as a result she's going to put more emphasis
in her department on company compliance of social targets and is in
the process of finalizing how the revitalized state-owned mining
company will work to play a bigger role.
The strike at Lonmin, South Africa's third-largest platinum
producer, began Aug. 10 when 3,000 rock drillers refused to go
underground without a wage increase. Fighting among workers left 10
people dead, including two police officers in the days that
followed.
The trouble peaked on Aug. 16, when 34 died. Police, monitoring
a crowd of protesters near the Lonmin site, said they gave their
several warnings before cordoning the police line off with barbed
wire. Police said a group of protesters charged at them through a
gap in the barbed wire and they responded with rubber bullets and
water cannons but when that failed to repel the demonstrators the
police resorted to live ammunition.
Since then unrest in the mining sector has spread; about 12,000
downed tools at South Africa's second-largest gold producer, Gold
Fields Ltd. (GFI), that has shut part of its KDC mine since
Wednesday. Several hundred workers refused to go underground at
Anglo American Platinum Ltd.'s (AMS.JO) Thembelani mine, in
mid-August while at the same time a strike at a mine belonging to
Royal Bafokeng Platinum Ltd. (RBO.JO), briefly halted
operations.
Ms. Shabangu said the mining industry needs to do more for
social development at mines, beyond "cosmetic transformation," and
that as a result her department has recommended amendments to the
country's mineral law for stricter enforcement.
"My department will be focused on holding every company
accountable" for social and transformation targets that need to be
met by 2014, Ms. Shabangu said.
The minister said mining companies must address the "appalling"
living conditions of miners, the large discrepancies between the
lowest and highest paid mineworkers, and the migrant workforce that
defines many company's employees.
Write to Devon Maylie at devon.maylie@dowjones.com
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