In July 1981, 1,700 workers at the Penge asbestos mine in the Northwestern Transvaal struck after a bitter, two year struggle for recognition by the Black Allied Mine and Construction Workers Union. After four days, the mine owners fired all of the workers, who then...
strike
Can’t you hear the thunder? | by Jay Naidoo
The headlines scream 'Marikana Massacre'; 'Killing Fields of Rustenburg'. Radio and TV Talk shows and social media all display the anger and expose the psyche of a nation badly wounded. The bloodiest security operation since the end of apartheid has left us shocked...
The brutal history of South Africa’s platinum industry | by Gavin Capps
Gavin Capps looks at how platinum has taken centre stage in South Africa's mining industry—and how workers have paid the cost Platinum mining is a big part of South Africa's economy. South Africa holds 88 percent of the world's platinum reserves and accounts for over...
On the Politics of Protest in Cape Town
By Jared Sacks A few weeks ago the City of Cape Town was rocked by a spate of road blockades and other significant protests. Certain liberal NGOs have joined the DA in condemning the protests claiming that they are violent and motivated by political party agendas. To...
Police attack UKZN Students
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Grad Students at UKZN Attacked, Arrested by SAPS and private security without provocation Today, just after 12:30pm, students participating in a peaceful demonstration at Howard College were attacked and arrested by SAPS. Peaceful protests...
Echoes of the Past:Marikana, Cheap Labour and the 1946 Miners Strike
Chris Webb On August 4, 1946 over one thousand miners assembled in Market Square in Johannesburg, South Africa. No hall in the town was big enough to hold them, and no one would have rented one to them anyway. The miners were members of the African Mine Worker's...
Miners’ wives rage at South African police brutality after ‘massacre’
Women performing apartheid-era toyi-toyi dance condemn mine company as they wait for news of victims of police shootings Nosisieko Jali's husband is missing. She has heard a rumour that a bullet hit him in the head, yet he survived. One witness said all his clothes...
The Marikana action is a strike by the poor against the state and the haves | by Justice Malala
The shooting at Lonmin's Marikana mine exposes weaknesses at the heart of South African society The story of the London-listed Lonmin's Marikana mine shootings is that of a trade union that cosied up to big business; of an upstart and populist new union that exploited...
Historic Lonmin faces “perfect storm” after killings
LONDON - "You can never have enough enemies," Tiny Rowland once boasted, but even the buccaneering tycoon who built what is now Lonmin plc might blench before the "perfect storm" it faces after South African police killed 34 strikers at its Marikana platinum mine....


