Marikana - South Africa has not yet achieved freedom, Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) leader Joseph Mathunjwa said on Sunday.
“When we voted in 1994, we were electing a black supervisor. We do not have freedom. Amcu is the only union that can liberate you,” Mathunjwa told a crowd in Marikana, near Rustenburg in North West, during the third anniversary commemoration of the August 2012 Marikana shootings.
He said the deaths of 34 mineworkers on August 16, 2012, had not been in vain.
“Their death was a tipping point in the labour history. We demand that August 16 must be a workers’ holiday or at least Workers Day be moved from May 1 to August 16,” he said.
In August 2012, mineworkers at Lonmin’s platinum mine at Marikana went on a wildcat strike demanding a minimum salary of R12 500 a month.
They rejected the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), and camped on top of a koppie (hill) near Nkaneng informal settlement demanding that Lonmin officials negotiate with them at the koppie.
The strike turned violent and 34 people, mostly mineworkers, died in a clash with police on August 16, 2012. The police were apparently attempting to disarm and disperse them.
Ten other people, including two policemen and two Lonmin security guards, were killed in the preceding week.
Mathunjwa said workers’ leader Mgcineni “Mambush” Noki - who died in the clash - was a symbol of workers’ struggle throughout the world.
Noki had been known as the man “in a green blanket” to journalists covering the strike. He was the first to allow journalists closer to the koppie.
Mathunjwa, who led a five-month strike in the platinum sector last year, said retrenchments in the mining sector were aimed at weakening Amcu.
“We gave them a five-month strike in (the) platinum (sector). Let us give them a ten-month strike in (the) gold (sector).”
He said Amcu intended to march to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against retrenchments.
ANA