adminThe mineworker, who spoke through a translator, told commission chair Ian Farlam miners were marching on the road behind the local police satellite office to Num’s office on 11 August.
En route Num members confronted and shot at them, he said. Two workers were killed. The scene where the miners were shot formed part of an in loco inspection by the commission.
From there the commission went to the Andrew Saffy memorial hospital where miners wounded in the shooting on 16 August were taken. On that day 34 miners were killed and 78 wounded when police opened fire while trying to disperse protesters near Lonmin’s platinum mine in Marikana, North West.
Hospital executive director, Dr Mel Mentz, took the commission on a tour of the wards. He said 56 injured patients were admitted to the hospital on the night of the shooting. Two workers were declared dead on arrival and one died at the hospital.
“There were so many casualties we had to activate our disaster plan,” he told Farlam.
“We had to make another room into a hospital room.”
Mentz said the hospital’s primary casualty ward only had place for six. Another ward was used as a secondary casualty ward.
The injured miners were stabilised at the hospital before being taken to other hospitals in Rustenburg, Johannesburg, and Pretoria.
Some patients were also taken to another mining hospital, said Mentz. Three patients were carried by helicopter, others by ambulance.
Commission members, advocates, observers and media braved the mid-afternoon sun as they walked from scene to scene.
The commission would inspect Lonmin’s mining hostels next.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s powerful trade unions yesterday demanded mine owners renegotiate up to 120 000 workers’ contracts a year before they are due to expire, in a bid to end months of labour unrest that has claimed five more lives.
Trade union federation Cosatu and the National Union of Mineworkers (Num) said a two-year deal for coal and gold miners that was inked last year urgently needed to be rewritten amid deadly labour disputes that have crippled production.
Cosatu secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi demanded “negotiations on wages and conditions of employment be reopened, or that the existing agreement lapsing in 2013 is brought forward.”
Cosatu’s demand holds substantial clout because the union is part of South Africa’s ruling alliance, led by the ANC.
The current wage agreement, which gave mineworkers 7.5 to 10 percent pay increases, is due to expire in August next year.
But Vavi called on “the Chamber of Mines to waste no more time before engaging with the Num and other unions in the mining industry to ensure that a lasting solution is found to the current stalemate.”
For almost 100 years labour relations at South Africa’s economically vital mines have been managed through some form of centralised wage agreements.
But a recent round of labour disputes have called the highly structured system into question.
Miners at gold, coal and platinum mines across the country have launched unilateral strikes in the wake of deadly clashes at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine, which killed 46 people.
Saddled with debt and struggling to make ends meet, miners seem increasingly willing to bypass Num and Cosatu in negotiating new contracts.
Many accuse both of being too cosy with mine bosses and of filling their own pockets, a sentiment that has helped the emergence of more militant unions.
That has led to a standoff with mine owners, who complain they are already burdened by some of the highest production costs anywhere in the world.
While some mines have agreed to pay increases, others have toughened their stance considerably.
Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), the world’s top platinum miner, ordered 26 000 striking workers to report for disciplinary hearings yesterday or face the sack.
“The company will… be left with no alternative but to dismiss, in their absence, all employees who do not present themselves,” it said in a statement.
And gold giant AngloGold Ashanti warned strikers there they might be forced to shut some operations if strike action continued.
“If the current unprotected strike continues, it compounds risks of a premature downsizing of AngloGold Ashanti’s South African operations,” said chief executive Mark Cutifani.
Meanwhile, related violence has continued unabated.
According to Num secretary general Frans Baleni five more people died on Sunday around Rustenburg, a major mining centre two hours drive northwest of Johannesburg.
Two of the workers were killed around the Impala platinum mine, whose owners agreed to limited wage hikes earlier this year.
In a separate attack the house of a Num steward in Rustenburg was hit with a petrol bomb over the weekend, leaving him hospitalised with serious injuries.
The Chamber of Mines of South Africa did not respond to requests for comment. — Sapa-AFP.
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