Mining unions are fuming at the lack of safety precautions for workers underground following the death of two miners at Harmony Gold’s Kusasalethu Mine in Carletonville, Gauteng.
Five workers were trapped underground on Friday due to a “1.8 magnitude seismic event”, which resulted in a 10m rockfall, according to Lauren Fourie, investor relations manager at Harmony.
Traumatised family members of the miners received counselling from the mine on Sunday.
Speaking to The Star, Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) president Joseph Mathunjwa berated the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) for not allowing Amcu’s Section 77 application to embark on a march to hand over a memorandum to the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) and the Presidency, to highlight what he said was a lack of investment in safety precautions for mineworkers.
Section 77 of the Labour Relations Act deals with socio-economic protest action.
“We wanted the Coida (Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act) legislation to be reviewed because of the oppressive nature of it. There is a section within the legislation which says that families cannot sue mining companies when negligence is found to be a key cause of death,” Mathunjwa said.
“If you look at the Kusasalethu deaths, even though there is yet to be a conclusive finding on this issue, our structures on the ground tell us it was hotter than normal underground. These are the things that need to be unearthed at the inquiry to be undertaken by the DMR.”
His views were echoed by Erick Gcilitshana, health and safety secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), who said a similar “seismic event” occurred in July at the Tau Lekoa gold mine in North West, which caused the deaths of four workers.
“We call upon the mining industry to be on the alert. It must learn lessons out of these two incidents and protect the lives of workers,” Gcilitshana cautioned.
“We sell our labour, not our lives, lungs and limbs. One death is one death too many as we (are talking) about breadwinners of families,” he added, saying NUM would be keeping a vigilant eye on the investigation of this tragedy.
However, Fourie told The Star at Kusasalethu yesterday that the mine could not predict Friday’s seismic event, and said Harmony took adequate safety measures in the event of tragedy.
“Every miner gets issued with a lamp as well as a rescue pack when they go underground. So in case of a fire or maybe something like this, they will use the safety pack that will give them sufficient oxygen to get to the next escape route or to the rescue bay.
“But unfortunately in this situation, there has been a huge rockfall and they haven’t been able to get to the rescue bay.”
Fourie said the families of the five trapped mineworkers, two of whom died over the weekend and were brought to the surface, were being offered counselling and would be assisted financially should all five miners not make it out alive. “We would assist with funeral and memorial arrangements If there are children, especially of school-going age, we would provide for their education.”