Frans Baleni, general-secretary, NUM
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SA mine safety strike to halt output
Allan Seccombe
Posted: Tue, 27 Nov 2007

[miningmx.com] -- A quarter of a million mine workers in South Africa will down tools on 4 December to protest against ongoing deaths in the industry, Frans Baleni, General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, said on Tuesday.

The strike will bring production at more than 60 companies to a standstill, but will serve to highlight the number of deaths it takes on the mines to extract South Africa’s mineral wealth, Baleni told Miningmx in a telephonic interview.

“We are making a statement and mobilising our members to be aware of the extent of fatalities and injuries. We want the government, industry and suppliers to take more serious measures to counter this,” Baleni said.
more serious measures
The 240,000 strong NUM has agreed to processes to adopt after the strike to enhance safety on the mines. The strike was given regulatory approval on Tuesday to proceed.

Companies to be affected are Anglo Platinum, Impala Platinum, AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony, Lonmin and the largest coal producers.

"Trade unions globally are sending protest and memorandums to various South African embassies to push them to act on the genocide that is unfolding in the mining industry," NUM said in a statement.

"Parties committed themselves to engage early in 2008 at senior level in order to develop pledges and actions that will, among others, strengthen and complement initiatives agreed at the Mine Health and Safety Council (MHSC), in order to respond to all areas of concern regarding health and safety on the mines," the Chamber of Mines said.

Trade union Solidarity will not join the strike despite supporting NUM’s actions. Its members will not do the jobs left undone by NUM members out on strike, said spokesman Dirk Hermann.

Solidarity has its own programme to push for improvements in safety including lobbying parliament to adopt certain International Labour Organisation (ILO) processes and pressuring listed companies to report every fatality at their mines on the JSE electronic news service.

The government will conduct a safety audit of the country’s roughly 700 mines during December.

The audit was ordered by President Thabo Mbeki after 3,200 workers were trapped underground at Harmony’s Elandsrand gold mine when a main shaft was damaged by a falling pipe.

The government has taken a tougher stance on mining companies when workers are killed at their operations. The mines are temporarily shut down to review the safety procedures. Millions of dollars have been forfeited in lost production.

Anglo Platinum, the world's largest producer of the metal, said this month it would produce 150,000 oz less refined platinum than the already reduced target of 2.65 million oz it set in July predominantly because of safety issues. CEO Ralph Havenstein quit his post over safety at the company's mines.

Last year, 200 people were killed on South African mines. So far this year the death toll stands at above 180.

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A South African Chamber of Mines study in 2004 showed the industry’s safety performance to be more than 50% worse than the benchmarks in Canada, Australia and the United States, requiring an improvement of 20% a year to reach those international levels by 2013, something the sector has committed itself to achieve.

What sets the local industry apart from the shallower operations of their peers in other countries is the fact that South African mines are mostly deep level operations, reaching world-beating depths, incurring seismic events, rockbursts and rockfalls that are impossible to predict.

The frequency fatality rate (FFR), which measures fatalities per million hours worked, have halved since 1996, but the gold sector has bucked the trend since 2004 because of a high turnover in skilled people, low morale and tough working conditions.

While acknowledging there had been some improvement, Baleni said the NUM was dissatisfied.

"It doesn't matter how much it has come down, there is still somebody losing a father or a loved one. The number is immaterial to those who are affected," Baleni said. "Our members are directly affected and they are prepared to sacrifice a day's salary to signify that enough is enough."

There was no improvement recorded in 2006 against 2005 after some sound progress was made since 2003.

The Chamber acknowledges the industry’s safety record is problematic and it is taking health and safety issues extremely seriously. In conjunction with its members representing 90% of South Africa’s mineral production, it is setting up four specialist “adoption teams” by the end of 2007.

These teams will investigate health and safety strategies from around the world including those in South Africa. They will recommend which should be adopted and how they should be implemented in a virtual step-by-step guide for the sector.