South Africa: Four dead as mine claims more lives

Sibanye-Stillwater has an appalling safety record. Two workers died at Kloof mine in March, and earlier 1,000 workers were trapped underground when there was a power failure. Those workers were later brought safely to the ground when the power was restored.

Twenty-six mineworkers have died from mine accidents since the beginning of this year. In 2017, 30 per cent of the accidents were caused by seismic activities in gold mines which have become dangerous workplaces. After having seen a drop in mining accidents in South Africa, this all changed last year.

Laws and regulations seem unable to stop the rising death tolls from mining accidents. The Mining Health and Safety Act, which set up an inspectorate to monitor safety standards and stop violations, appear to have improved safety over the years before the reverse started happening.

IndustriALL Global Union affiliate the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is “concerned at the rate at which mining incidents are happening at Sibanye Stillwater”.

Says Glen Mpufane, IndustriALL director for mining:

“South African mines are increasingly becoming dangerous death traps for mineworkers, and this situation can’t be allowed to continue. The health and safety of workers who toil daily to feed their families is very important and mining companies have a responsibility to ensure safety standards that safeguard the precious lives of mineworkers are adhered to.”

Gwede Mantashe, the minister of mineral resources, says mining companies should put “greater attention to issues of safety, particularly the protection of lives of workers as opposed to the insistence on chasing production.” He promises that the government of South Africa will put together a team of experts to investigate the seismic activities.

South Africa: Zara accused of design theft

Zara conceded to its guilt by withdrawing some of the merchandise. It had appeared in stores in South Africa, the US and UK Instead of playing copycat, SACTWU is urging Zara to work with local designers and clothing factories to create more jobs in the garment sector.

According to SACTWU the “cut-and-paste” of designs by big multinational companies ignores the “little folk” whose businesses are vulnerable to such practices and can collapse as a result. The union argues that the niche market is the lifeblood of small boutique brands and can be easily killed off by mass production by big retailers like Zara. This will wipe out the local and global market for local designers.

Says Andre Kriel, general secretary of SACTWU:

“It seems they are comfortable acting like colonialists – simply exporting the money they make in South Africa to Spain and causing damage to local factories and workers. Now they are stealing some of our cultural artefacts and damaging a niche designer along the way”.

Kriel explains further:

“International brand Zara appears to have appropriated the designs of South African homegrown talent, the inspiring local designer Laduma Ngxokolo and his brand maXhosa. If this is true – and it is certainly suggested by the ‘coincidental’ stylistic overlaps between some Zara products and maXhosa’s iconic designs – it would represent the worst form of fashion colonialism: the extraction by global retail powerhouses, based in the developed world, of intellectual and cultural heritage from far less powerful designers based in the developing world”.

SACTWU says Zara is more interested in commercial value than design rights.

“Culture, designs and styles are reduced to fair game that can be poached or cut-and-pasted – the more so if these designs are considered exotic, other and traditional. There is no sensitivity to the origins of the designs, their context, history, and meaning”.

Says Paule France Ndessomin, IndustriALL regional secretary for Sub Saharan Africa.

“Local designs and factories should be promoted instead of being destroyed by big brands. For this reason, we support SACTWU in its campaign for an agreement with Zara.”

SACTWU has been trying since last year to get Zara’s parent company, Inditex, to procure goods from South Africa to save local factories from closing but the company is refusing to commit to an agreement.

eSwatini: Union celebrates court victory

Therefore, the two unions no longer exist but are now part of ATUSWA which is a registered union under the Commissioner of Labour.

Reads the court ruling: “In the light of the evidence before the Court, the proper application of the law is that all trade unions that amalgamated ceased to exist and are defunct. Their membership, rights and duties were assumed by the newly formed trade union, ATUSWA”. This puts to rest attempts by the merged unions to revert to their old names and former autonomy. The old unions with support from employers and some in government were bent on dividing and weakening ATUSWA.

However, the court challenge took its toll on ATUSWA finances because the union was unable to receive subscriptions from members who were being claimed by the former unions. This explains the relief to the union brought by this court victory. The Court ordered that the challenging unions to pay the legal costs.

ATUSWA thanked the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland for its support during the court challenge. It also recognized IndustriALL for “standing by our organization when it was not fashionable to do so. We were able to keep the fires burning because of the support we received from IndustriALL”.

Wander Mkhonza, secretary general of ATUSWA says:

“To the employers who took advantage of the situation to frustrate the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining we say shame on you. Workers, who made an informed decision to form this giant union and to stand behind its leadership, will go down in history for standing for their rights when odds were stacked against them”.

Says Paule France Ndessomin, IndustriALL regional secretary for Sub Saharan Africa:

“Court battles often waste union time to the extent that its core activities suffer because of the uncertainty created by legal challenges. Therefore, we join ATUSWA in celebrating the court victory, and to use this moment to focus on the important work ahead of recruiting and organizing more workers.”

South Africa: Union protests Glencore malpractices

The march was part of a nation-wide strike called by the Federation of South African Trade Unions, which saw tens of thousands of workers taking to the streets in South Africa’s main cities to stop amendments to labour laws compromising the right to strike, and the introduction of a minimum wage, too low to meet workers’ needs.

Demonstrators called on Glencore to stop undermining wages and conditions of employment, end union bashing and denying workers freedom of association, and stop polluting the environment through reckless acid waste disposal at its operations.

Glen Mpufane, IndustriALL director for mining says:

Multinational companies like Glencore should lead in responsible mining by respecting workers and human rights, collective bargaining and protecting the interests and rights of mine-affected communities. To this end, we will continue our campaign to force Glencore to comply.

NUMSA is demanding the re-registration of smelters with South Africa's Department of Minerals and Resources, and the disciplining of managers involved in collective bargaining that violated ILO conventions. Additionally, Glencore should engage NUMSA as the majority union in the company’s coal division. Contract workers and those employed by labour brokers should get better deals instead of unequal wages, bad working conditions and deplorable health and safety standards.

Thabo Mogoroe, NUMSA, said, when handing the petition to Glencore staff who received the document from behind a steel gate:

We want to inform Glencore that this is the beginning of a series of actions that we will take to fight back its attack on workers, the poor and their families. We are gathered to protest the abuse of workers, communities and the environment by Glencore, not only in South Africa but internationally.

NUMSA was part of the IndustriALL mission to DRC in February, and condemns the human and workers’ rights abuses at Glencore operations at Mutanda Mine and Kamoto Copper Mine. These include constant threats of dismissals, poor health and safety practices, occupation diseases, racism and discrimination, unfair and unjust job classifications, low pay and inferior salaries for Congolese workers compared to foreign ones.

The union also condemned the discharge of acid waste into local rivers at Luilu copper refinery also in Kolwezi. There are also acid waste drainage problems in Mpumalanga, South Africa, where communities will be left with polluted water long after mining has stopped.

*This article was amended on 30 April to reflect that NUMSA wants smelters to be registered under the Department of Minerals and Resources, and not the Department of Labour

PROFILE: TUMEC – organizing and defending Congolese workers’ rights

Union: Travailleurs Unis des Mines, Métallurgies, Energie, Chimie et Industries Connexes (TUMEC)

Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

Text: Elijah Chiwota

The DRC is rich in cobalt, copper, gold and other minerals. About 65 per cent of the global cobalt, whose prices have spiked because of increased demand from electric car batteries and smartphones makers, is mined in the DRC. However, the country’s history has not made organizing easy for TUMEC as multinationals have become used to exploiting workers.

The DRC is often used as an example of a country facing “a resource curse” where mineral riches fund wars and bloodshed instead of developing the country’s livelihoods and infrastructure including roads and clinics thus reversing poverty.

Organizing in a country with such a past and as vast in size as the DRC has not been an easy task for TUMEC, but the struggle for due diligence and responsible mining and to unionize more workers continues.

TUMEC fights to ensure that employers conform to labour practices that are agreed upon in collective agreements as protected by the law. Organizing in the mines, in energy, and chemical sectors, including workers from subcontractors and artisanal mines, TUMEC has over 12,000 members in companies that include mining multinational Glencore, and state-owned mining company Gecamines.

TUMEC is part of IndustriALL’s Glencore campaign, aiming to enforce respect of workers at the company’s operations at Mutanda and Kamoto Copper Company in Kolwezi, Lualaba province.

Through continued recruitment and organizing, it is now an established union in Kolwezi, Lubumbashi, Doko, Kisangani, Mbujimayi, Kinshasa, Lukala, Matadi and Muanda. TUMEC campaigned through union elections at workplaces, according to the labour laws. The union with the highest number of votes in the elections becomes the majority union, whilst that with less votes will be a representation union. This year, TUMEC aims to become a majority union, which has power to negotiate with the employer.

Much of TUMEC’s work over the last years has been supported through an IndustriALL union building project funded by Dutch trade union solidarity support organization Mondiaal FNV.

In the last couple of years, leadership problems at TUMEC in Kolwezi stunted membership growth. However, after last year’s congress a new leadership was elected and recruitment and organizing plans were put in place. Among other workplaces, TUMEC is targeting Mutanda and Kamoto. At Mutanda, it has only 200 members out of a permanent workforce of 6,500, and at KCC it has 175 members out of 5,800 permanent workers. The union is working hard to reverse this situation.

“TUMEC’s recruitment and organizing strategy focuses on problems that workers face daily at the workplace. We then try to solve the problems in participatory ways which involve workers. We don’t attract workers to the union by offering them money or clothes. Instead, they join the union because it is guaranteed that TUMEC will fight for their rights,” says the general secretary Didier Okonda.

In 2017, the IndustriALL DRC women’s committee was set up to address issues affecting women workers in the union. The committee is organizing more women into the union and setting up women’s committees at companies where TUMEC is organizing. There are plans for training workshops on rights and working conditions for women, campaign against sexual harassment, freedom of association, health and safety, laws that affect women, and improving the understanding of gender issues.

“Hopefully the training will develop a strategy to stop violations of working women’s rights’ at workplaces in the DRC and to build their participation and leadership skills,” says Olga Kabalu, chairperson of the women’s committee.

IndustriALL condemns Ghana Gold Fields retrenchments

Ghana Gold Fields is retrenching and rehiring the same workers on contract.

According to IndustriALL affiliate Ghana Mine Workers Union (GMWU) the retrenchments were not done according to the law, prompting the union to go to court. The union organized a general strike last month, during which the military beat up workers at Tarkwa – an action that was strongly condemned by the union.

An agreement to break the deadlock signed on April 4 has the following conditions: GMWU to withdraw the pending court case before the negotiations, and for the company and union to re-engage on the 2018 wage negotiations in good faith and without media publicity. The Damang mine restructuring should be done according to the Labour Act 2003 and the collective bargaining agreement.

Further, Gold Fields wants to select “on a case-by-case basis and recommend those branch union executives with appropriate conduct and without health issues to the contractors executing the contract mining at Tarkwa mine for potential employment.

During a recent mission to Ghana, IndustriALL general secretary Valter Sanches, together with Paule France Ndessomin, regional secretary for Sub Saharan Africa, met with the deputy minister of employment and labour relations, Bright Wireko-Brobbey, who is involved in the dispute as an observer. The minister says a commission will be set up to investigate working conditions under precarious work.

Collective bargaining should be concluded on time. It is unacceptable for the ministry of labour to unnecessarily delay the issuing of bargaining certificates as this infringed on workers’ rights to representation and freedom of association,

says Sanches.

The general secretary of the GMWU, Prince William Ankrah, expressed gratitude to IndustriALL for sending a letter to Gold Fields and for supporting the mineworkers.

At meetings with the chairperson of the Ghana IndustriALL liaison committee, Solomon Kotei, who is also the general secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, the general secretary of General Transport, Petroleum and Chemical Workers Union, Fuseini Iddrisu, and the GMWU, Sanches emphasized workers’ rights.

Workers are free to join a union of their choice without interference from employers or the government. The abuse of precarious workers by employers in the oil and gas sector must stop, and it is shocking that offshore workers are not unionized.

Sanches urges rethink on African development strategies

Sanches spoke at a Sub Saharan Africa regional executive meeting, in Dakar, Senegal on April 12, to affiliates from Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

He emphasized that trade unions have to prepare as the global economy moves to newer technologies that need different raw materials from Africa. Decreased demand for some minerals and for oil and gas means that jobs will be lost in those sectors, resulting in governments getting less revenue. Investing more in manufacturing is an essential strategy for the future.

Sanches said: “Opportunities still exist as the continent has rare earth minerals including cobalt, lithium, zinc and nickel that are in high demand. However, these have to be mined responsibly, and this is part of our campaign against Glencore’s behaviour at cobalt mining operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia”.

Sanches also met with the Senegalese Minister of Labour and Social Dialogue Samba Sy to deliver the same message. He was accompanied by the regional secretary for Sub Sahara Africa, Paule France Ndessomin and general secretaries from local affiliates, Seyne Ndiaye (SUTIDS), Ousmane Diop (SYNTICS) and Doudou Cisse (SNTIC).

Recent developments show that in a few years – as the world moves towards electric cars – the demand for petrol and diesel cars will slump. Some European cities have even already announced moves to ban combustion engine cars.

Africa’s post-colonial development strategy has been centred on the extraction of raw materials for sale to Europe, America and recently China. This strategy has been dominated by multinational corporations with little role for governments, resulting in huge profits at the expense of communities and workers exploited through poverty wages. It has been easy to violate trade union rights and disrupt the livelihoods of millions of people.

In March, 44 African heads of states and governments met in Kigali, Rwanda and signed an African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Speaking on the initiative, Sanches said:

“The announcement of AfCFTA is welcome, but IndustriALL believes in multilateralism which involves trade unions and social movements. This means governments should have included unions and social movements as key stakeholders in the free trade agreement consultations. Otherwise, we will end up with a free trade agreement that will not promote decent work but precarious conditions of employment and poor wages”.

Energy transition is another key area for Africa, with calls for the development of sustainable industrial policies that are not dependent on fossil fuels and oil and gas. Just transition plans should be put in place to protect workers’ rights and welfare, as well as redeploy workers who lose jobs due to the closure of coal mines.

Meeting recommends policies to end women workers’ rights violations in Sub Saharan Africa

Maternity protection is amongst the issues raised at the Sub Saharan Africa women’s executive meeting in Dakar, Senegal April 10 -11 that was attended by delegates from Burkina Faso, Kenya, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The meeting urged unions to adopt policies that ended gender discrimination and sexual harassment at workplaces.

Campaigns on women’s rights at the workplace carried by the IndustriALL affiliates at the meeting focused on physical, emotional and psychological abuses as well as gender discrimination and sexual harassment. The campaigns also took place in communities where the workers lived. For example, in Senegal, gender-based violence included rape, forced marriages, and female genital mutilation.

Says Beauty Zibula, regional chairperson of the IndustriALL women executive committee:

Women are dying from injuries sustained in gender-based violence. To stop this, we must use domestic laws and international conventions to protect women workers and union members.

The meeting encouraged unions to develop gender policies that guided on how to stop sexual harassment and gender-based violence. For instance, affiliates in Ghana and Zimbabwe have already developed gender policies.

Further, the meeting recommended that IndustriALL should support and develop a gender policy which affiliates could use and adapt according to their country contexts. An anti-harassment policy is also needed.

The meeting also agreed on the need to train and include more women in collective bargaining.

Adds Zibula:

Unions should stop excluding trained women negotiators from collective bargaining. This often resulted in the signing of collective bargaining agreements that omitted the specific needs of women workers.

Says Paule-France Ndessomin regional secretary for Sub Saharan Africa:

Our affiliates in Sub Saharan Africa have a key responsibility to work towards the elimination of violence against women not only institutionally, but also through educating their members and the wider community, advocacy and collective bargaining. Women should be commended for breaking the silence and being more vocal on how they are being forced into having sex with their superiors.

Government officials including the ministries of trade and mines, and the ministry of labour, and union leaders, signed the IndustriALL pledge on violence and harassment against women.

Mozambique: Union shocked by appalling conditions at plastics factory

The union visited IPED Plastics, a factory producing plastic bags in Maputo Province, and found workers sweating in the heat from the machines, with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees. There were no cooling systems in sight, nor were there showers for workers to cool off after the shifts.

The workers also lacked suitable safety equipment and deep cuts were common. Further, the factory had electronic gates and security cameras but no sign of a fire escape, putting workers at risk. There are no medical examinations to check workers’ health at the company, which has been manufacturing in Mozambique for more than 10 years.

IPED pays all the workers the minimum wage of 5965 Mt (US$98) regardless of the type of work they do or the skills they have. SINTIQUIAF is demanding that this unfair job classification be ended. The union also wants workers to be paid above the minimum wage, WHICH is below the recommended amount for workers to be able to buy a basic food basket which costs 16000 Mt (US$264). The union said it is disappointed t the company is exploiting workers to make more profits when it could afford to pay better wages.

Bartolomew Passado, SINTIQUIAF organizing and legal, labour and social affairs secretary, who visited IPED plastics, said:

“While SINTIQUIAF and other organizations in Mozambique welcome foreign investment as it contributes to job creation and reduces unemployment, it distances itself from the so-called investors who make profits through exploiting workers and forcing them to work in unhealthy and dangerous conditions for low wages.”

Adds Paule France Ndessomin, IndustriALL regional secretary for Sub Saharan Africa:

“Health and safety of workers comes before profit. What is happening at IPED Plastics is unacceptable and must be condemned. We support SINTIQUIAF in its campaign to improve health and safety standards and increase wages.”

Union rejects retrenchment of 340 mineworkers at Abosso Gold Fields in Ghana

According to IndustriALL Global Union affiliate, the Ghana Mineworkers Union (GMWU), the retrenchments are meant to bust the union as all unionized workers were retrenched at Tarkwa. After the retrenchments, Gold Fields offered six months to two-year contracts to some of the workers.

The union sees the retrenchments as an attack on the International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions 87 and 98. For example, freedom of association on the right to strike was violated when workers were beaten up by the military during a strike at Tarkwa in March. The brutality led to some workers being hospitalized for injuries from the beatings. The right to organize and collective bargaining is also under threat.

Prince William Ankrah, GMWU general secretary, said:

“The ruthless decision by Gold Fields Ghana to lay off all employees at Tarkwa mine contrary to the claims of its CEO (Nick Holland), amount to bad faith and an attack on the fundamental rights of the workers freedom of association and collective bargaining. With no form of protection, current employees on the so-called fixed term contract are at the mercy of the company.”

The union is against the cheapening of workers' contracts from permanent to casual. By opting for casual work Gold Fields is destroying decent jobs and replacing them with precarious ones and worse working conditions.

Adds Ankrah: “The union believes that the business imperatives at Gold Fields Ghana Tarkwa mine do not require contract mining and therefore terminating employees on grounds of redundancy regardless remains questionable. Gold Fields' actions are a calculated attack on the union and on collective bargaining. Indeed, its actions are deliberatively targeted at eroding every gain made through collective bargaining and therefore runs counter to the ILO decent work agenda.”

As negotiations continue, a committee from the Ministry of Labour, Lands and Natural Resources is intervening in the matter and the GMWU has gone to court to have the retrenchments reversed.

Paule France Ndessomin the IndustriALL regional secretary for Sub Saharan Africa says the GMWU is making the right call. “Retrenching so many workers must be resisted, and Ghana Gold Fields must not be allowed to retrench workers at will. Decent jobs must be preserved and not be replaced with precarious work.”