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The Association of Mining and Construction Workers (AMCU) was born in 1998 out of a strike at Douglas Colliery, one of the oldest mines belonging to Ingwe Coal, when 3,000 workers occupied the underground works of the mine in protest against the dismissal of Joseph...
Voices from Marikana: Lonmin workers speak It's nearly four months after the Marikana massacre, and the atmosphere in and around Lonmin is still one of fear in the face of a de facto state of emergency. As Amandla! goes to press, police continue to use excessive force...
The formation of a workers' committee is an act of power by the working class. It has shaken capital by advancing far beyond trade union bureaucracy. The workers' committee in Lonmin had only been in existence for a week when the Marikana massacre took place on the 16...
Whether the aftermath of Marikana will spell the downright end of the National Union of Mineworkers, the resentment against the traditional structures of bargaining and the union leadership is palpable in the platinum belt, sometimes bordering on murderous anger. The...
My name is Tibugo, I'm one of the strike committee leaders at Anglo American in Rustenburg. I work as a PTV (personnel transport vehicle operator) at Amplats, I do mostly pipe work. Sometimes I clean the tunnels. It's extremely labor intensive. I've been here for a...
In its first months of hearings, the Farlam Commission has shown us clear evidence of a bungled police cover up of a massacre, the National Union of Mineworkers' (NUM) own attempt to hide its role, and an alarming level of complicity between state and capital. The...
"They killed us with hippos" Eyewitness account (interpreted from SeTswana): 'They killed us with Hippos. These Hippos arrived here, ran over people. People ran the opposite side (gestures towards 'Killing Koppie')...and the police still went and shot them. When they...
Amandla (A!): Is platinum the new gold for the South African economy and how has the global crisis impacted on the industry? GC: Platinum has historically been a relatively marginal metal in the world economy. South Africa has 88 percent of the world's known reserves...
Did Zuma Collude With the Mining Bosses? First published in Counterpunch by BENJAMIN FOGEL “Two hundred thousand subterranean heroes who, by day and by night, for a mere pittance lay down their lives to the familiar `fall of rock` and who, at deep levels, ranging from...