PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma on Thursday finally released the much-awaited report on the killing of mineworkers in Marikana during one of the country’s bloodiest industrial actions.
While the report by retired Judge Ian Farlam offered us nothing we did not know already, it did give us some insights into the machinations of the world that webs through politics, business and industrial relations.
Forget about police commissioner Riah Phiyega, whom Farlam found to be wanting. Since her appointment Phiyega failed to inspire confidence and change the trigger happy culture that was inculcated into the police force by her predecessor Bheki Cele. She failed to dispatch the impressive leadership that made her the darling of the corporate world.
In the police force Phiyega was simply flat. (There are stronger words to describe the “decorated” general’s tenure in the police). The less said about former North West provincial commissioner Zukiswa Mbombo the better.
What is important is Judge Farlam’s findings on Lonmin. Farlam said something that would, in a decent society, prickle the hardened conscience of the mining houses, finding that the company did not provide sufficient safety for non-striking employees, and did little to implement its social and labour plans.
These plans include paying decent wages for the job done and extending some interest in the social and living conditions of the mineworkers. They mean that businesses should stop looking at their workers as a commodity entry into the ledger book. They mean that despite their levels of education, mineworkers are as human as the bosses.
Underground
Day in and day out, these men – and of late women – mostly from the hinterlands of rural South Africa, spend hours underground to make us counted as one of the mineral rich countries of the world. Their importance in this tapestry of wealth often ends as soon as they leave the bowels of the earth.
From then on they are on their own. So when they rose up against what they believed was not a fair share of their exploits in the production lines, it did not need a rocket scientist to understand that their grievances were genuine.
The strike in Marikana, a sleepy informal settlement on the outskirts of Rustenburg, started off as an unprotected industrial action for a fair share in the profits. Unprotected as it was, it brought to the fore the squalid conditions that the workers lived under.
During the commission, mine bosses tried to paint the workers as greedy, arguing that they pay them a living out allowance for decent accommodation.
What the mine bosses did not tell Judge Farlam was that these allowances are the root cause of squalor that surrounds many mining towns. For workers, who are paid so little, the little that they make out of these allowances is spent on immediate needs such as education for their children and support for extended families they have left behind.
I was in Marikana on an assignment for an international media house before the tragic shootings. I spoke to some of the miners who told me about the daily struggle they wage to survive. I heard stories about how most are indebted to loan sharks simply because their salaries are not enough to meet these immediate needs. I heard how their banking and social grant cards are kept as a security for their loans.
But above all, I saw the epitome of human decency in Aisha Fundi – the wife of Hasan Fundi, one of the security guards who was killed and his body mutilated for muti purposes just days before the fatal shootings – who, despite her husband’s death at the hands of the strikers, harboured no ill will towards them. She sympathised with their living conditions.
But to be fair to Lonmin, they are not alone in this game. Mining houses have particularly perfected the us and them principle. They believe that if you separate the workers from the bosses you diminish the points at which friction between them may occur and, hence, ensure good relations.
Responsibility
They, and their politically connected gatekeepers, should therefore take a collective responsibility for what happened in Marikana. They should know that beyond profits, companies should have foundations and legal parameters for contracts to incorporate an “ubuntu or good faith” principle in future.
Sadly, this is unlikely to happen. Beyond the recommendations made by Farlam, the workers will continue to live in the same squalid conditions they were before the strike, while the mining bosses rake in yet another impressive performance in the stock market.
The miners genuine plight will be hijacked by opportunists such as the United Front to score political mileage out of it. The only dot that will be left is the indictment on the post-apartheid democracy.