The Impala Platinum mine in
Rustenburg is built on land stolen from the masses under the ‘apartheid’ regime
for Anglo American. Under the limited land ‘restitution’ process the land was
supposed to be returned to the masses who had been forcibly removed. However a
negotiation took place on the principle of ‘willing buyer-willing seller’. US
bank, JP Morgan Chase, the main bank that controls Anglo American (and which
controls the SA Reserve Bank), retained control while an artificial tribal
entity was created, the Royal Bafokeng nation, to act as a cover for this. The
chiefs of this ‘Royal Bafokeng nation’ accepted a mere 13% stake in Implats as
a bribe for leaving JP Morgan Chase in control. The masses were entitled to a
100% takeover but settling for crumbs is what is really the cornerstone of
‘Black Economic Empowerment’, whether so-called ‘broad-based’ or not. The
facilitator in this betrayal was the ANC-SACP government.
The price of platinum has
doubled since 2004 and has tripled, if we consider just a few extra years.
Workers wages have not followed the trend. In other words, JP Morgan Chase,
through Implats, has made a killing, making massive profits while the world is
in deep recession (if not depression). Workers still take home R3500 per month,
while casualization, contract labour and labour broking is the cornerstone of
the exploitative regime at Implats.
Mining is dangerous. More
than 67 workers have already died this year on the SA mines. Yet the wages at
Implats lag even the other exploiters in the same industry in SA.
Increasingly the Cosatu
union leaders are becoming sweethearts of
big capital. At Implats the trend is that shopstewards are coming from
the more privileged layers of workers, in this case mine supervisors. In
November 2011 NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) signed an agreement giving
certain mine supervisors an 18% increase in wages and increase in housing
allowance. Thus the privileged layer of NUM shopstewards signed an agreement to
benefit themselves at the exclusion of the rest of the workers.
When the rockdrillers
objected, Implats bosses tried to force workers to work through the same NUM
shopstewards who were responsible for the sellout agreement in the first place.
JP Morgan Chase formed a
Through interdicts and
police, the imperialists of Implats tried to break the workers unity- they
failed. Eventually imperialism sent their trusted ally in the workers movement,
Vavi, to try and get the workers back to work. He could not break the workers
unity. Eventually, management had to back down and agree to reinstate all
workers but they still threatened not to take back 2000 workers (the
ringleaders). As of Friday 2nd March 2012, after most workers had
gone back, workers came back out on strike as management went back on their
agreement to reinstate all workers.
Workers may recall that Vavi
was sent to VWSA in Uitenhage to get striking workers back to work. He came on
the day before the ultimatum was due to expire in February 2000- he called on
workers to go back and promised to come back the next day to address workers on
their grievances. He did not come back. Most workers had gone back to work and
management dismissed 1376 workers who remained outside and who are still
waiting for Vavi until this day. The VWSA workers in 2000 were striking over a
sellout agreement of Numsa shopstewards with the bosses.
Drawing the lessons and the way forward
Firstly, workers did the
right thing by all going back by Wed 29th Feb. It was better to make
a tactical retreat to be able to fight from the inside rather than outside.
Thus workers are in a stronger position to fight the company now that they are
refusing to take back some workers.
Workers should resist
efforts by the NUM leaders to drive the fight against dismissals and
victimization through the courts. The process will just drag on and the
production will continue, while the leadership of the fight against the bosses
will be starving and dying outside.
Workers should resist
efforts to divide them from the so-called independent union, AMCU (Amalgamated
Mining and Construction Union), irrespective of the good intentions of some of
their leadership. Having 2 unions will divert the fight against the bosses to
an infighting among workers over which union to belong to. Workers should
mobilise to replace the NUM shopstewards with leaders of the strike. Further,
workers should set up and strengthen shaft committees of rank and file workers.
It is necessary to also set up committees of self-defence which are accountable
to the broad shaft committees. A call
should be made to all mine workers across the country to come out in solidarity
with them, they should also set up committees of rank and file workers, to
stand up against the pro-boss shopstewards and union leaders of the NUM and
their pro-boss agreements.
The ANC empowerment
companies and entities, such as the tribal chiefs of the ‘Royal Bafokeng
nation’ are shareholders in the exploitation of workers, in fact they run the
very labour brokers that are a new form of slavery on behalf of JP Morgan Chase
and other capitalists.
Even further, thus, a call
should be made for all workers across the country to come out in solidarity
with the Implats workers in the 1-day strike on Wed 7th March 2012.
We need to realize that with
the current leadership of Cosatu, which is allied to the ANC-SACP government,
workers will forever remain poor, just as our mothers and fathers were kept
poor by the system.
Forward to the total
takeover of Implats by the workers- we are taking what is rightfully ours. When
Malema says, when he calls for nationalization of the mines- all he wants is
for the 13% stake to go up to 25%- he wants a share without paying his real
bosses, Anglo American. Then he will do the same as the chiefs of the ‘Royal
Bafokeng nation’, namely support the exploitation by the US imperialist bosses,
while the workers still get peanuts and remain slaves.
We need to realize that real
nationalization, real expropriation of the mines, will only occur when the
workers take it themselves, rising up against the ANC-SACP regime, and their
agents in the workers movement. But for this to happen we need to mobilise for
rank and file committees of workers in all workplaces to challenge the Cosatu
leaders. But above all we need to build an independent revolutionary working
class party, uniting workers locally, regionally and internationally.
A working class united will
never be defeated!
Workers International Vanguard League
Ph 021 447677 ph 0822020617
email: workersinternational@gmail.com
; website: www.workersinternational.org.za