After the Bell: SA miners are by no means earning the ‘slave wages’ asserted by Amcu’s Mathunjwa

10 Dec 2023

Labour is understandably angry about the tragedy, which was the worst mining disaster in South Africa in decades. But that is no excuse to spout lies about the economic circumstances of the men who perished or the industry they worked for.

At the recent memorial for the 13 men who died in a conveyance lift disaster at Impala Platinum’s (Implats’) Rustenburg mine, Joseph Mathunjwa, the president of the Amcu union, made the following scathing remarks:

“These platinum mines are making trillions at the expense of black mine workers. Those workers who perished in that conveyancer received a wage-slave salary.”

Both of these assertions are demonstrably false. Spreading such distortions to advance an agenda at a memorial to honour and remember the dead is crass and offensive opportunism.

Labour is understandably angry about the tragedy, which was the worst mining disaster in South Africa in decades. But that is no excuse to spout lies about the economic circumstances of the men who perished or the industry they worked for.

According to Implats — and Mathunjwa is welcome to challenge these numbers, though he is presumably well aware of them — until the end of the 2023 financial year in June, the average remuneration package for rock-drill operators (RDOs) was R310,000 annually, or almost R26,000 a month.

This excludes top-ups such as production and profit share bonuses, dividends that accrued through an employee share scheme, and overtime pay.

For scraper winch operators, the average annual remuneration package was R290,000 annually.

Seven of the men who died were RDOs, while four were scraper winch operators.

Their annual remuneration packages would have placed them, by some estimates, in South Africa’s high-income category. For example, the FNB/BER Consumer Confidence Index classifies high-income households as those who earn R20,000 or more a month.

That may be a questionable income classification. But the fact is that, by South African standards, Implats mine workers are making a decent wage. The average monthly salary for teachers and police officers is closer to R20,000 a month.

It is by no means a “slave wage”.

If Mathunjwa really thought that was the case, one wonders why Amcu agreed to a five-year inflation-linked wage settlement with Implats last year — an agreement reached without a tool being downed.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Amcu’s Mathunjwa has a strong message for Sibanye ahead of wage talks

One reason for that strike-free settlement was no doubt the fact that Implats and other South African major mining companies have, for at least the past two decades, agreed to above-inflation wage settlements with unions.

This growth in real wages is surely testimony to Amcu’s success. We are a long way from the dark days of the Marikana massacre in 2012 when the Amcu rallying cry was R12,500 a month.

Data provided to Daily Maverick last year by Sibanye-Stillwater — which now owns the Marikana mine — show that from 2013 to 2021, wages for entry-level workers at Marikana climbed by just over 90%, while cumulative CPI was 45.7%. That represents real wage growth of almost 45% over that period.

The decline in labour militancy — most of South Africa’s platinum group metals (PGMs) industry currently has multiyear wage agreements that were reached without any strike action — is surely linked to these trends.

The grandfathers and fathers of the 13 men who died on 27 November at the Rustenburg mine would have indeed toiled for “slave wages”, to use Mathunjwa’s ahistorical terminology. (Slave labour by definition is unpaid labour.)

Most of them were from the Eastern Cape and Lesotho, which for decades provided the mining sector with a rural migrant labour force that was subjected to ruthless exploitation.

Read more in Daily Maverick: How the twilight of SA’s migrant labour system spawned a social apocalypse

For decades, the real wages of migrant miners declined or stagnated, delivering rich dividends to the Randlords who cared little about black lives. Since industrial-scale mining began in South Africa in the late 19th century, more than 80,000 mine workers have been killed and over a million injured, according to Minerals Council SA data.

That does not include the untold number who died from occupational diseases such as silicosis.

But South Africa’s mines are no longer death traps. I have written and reported extensively over the years about the dramatic improvements in mine safety, which saw a record annual low of 49 deaths in 2022.

The same social, political and economic forces that have driven up wages have also driven down mine deaths. In the 21st century, investors don’t want their dividends drenched in blood, and they increasingly want workforces to be treated equitably.

Some critics (including those who still don’t mind a bit of ruthless exploitation for profit) deride this as “woke capitalism” — the term of art is ESGs or environmental, social and governance concerns — but it’s a thing.

One consequence is that South Africa’s overwhelmingly black mining labour force is no longer subjected to apartheid indignities and is far better paid for much safer work.

The mining sector — also, in part, because of these positive trends — is not a licence to print money.

This brings me to Mathunjwa’s other blatant falsehood — that “these platinum mines are making trillions at the expense of black mine workers”.

Trillions? Seriously?

Two years ago, South Africa’s PGM producers were making record profits from record prices, but we are talking tens of billions of rands here, not trillions. And the industry for the previous decade was barely profitable and often lossmaking.

The subsequent collapse of prices under the combined weight of a fragile global economic recovery and the rise of electric vehicles means most PGM shafts in South Africa are probably again lossmaking or breaking even.

Of course, none of this absolves Implats and its executives from being held accountable for this tragedy. An investigation is under way to determine why the conveyance cage reversed suddenly from its ascent into a rapid and bone-shattering descent.

This probe will hopefully cast the light of truth into the darkness of the shaft in which the men died.

That is surely one way to honour them and bring some justice for their families: the truth. DM

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