Historically, mining was an exclusive preserve of men. In South Africa, women were initially excluded from working underground in mining by the 1911 South African Mines and Works Act, and by subsequent legislation such as the South African Minerals Act of 1991. However, after the end of apartheid in 1994, women were permitted to work underground in line with the gender equality provisions of the new constitution. Their participation was promoted through a series of legislative measures, culminating in the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) of 2002. Its adjunct Mining Charter compelled mining companies to attain at least a 10% threshold for women in the mine workforce. By 2012, the total number of women in the industry stood at over 43,000 (Benya 2013a, 145).
Despite these changes, mining has remained an overwhelmingly masculine domain and conditions are far from easy for women working underground. In her seminal studies on the South African platinum mines, Benya (2009, 2013b) argues that female workers are still marginalised not only by their male counterparts, but also by the unions and mine management. In particular, women's issues are still largely unaddressed because of deeply entrenched gender discrimination, and women are invariably excluded from decision-making positions and often absent when decisions affecting their welfare are discussed. Benya also highlights the many struggles that women mineworkers face on a daily basis, ranging from inappropriate working gear or Personal Protective Equipment, through to lack of dedicated sanitation facilities underground, lack of job elevation, to outright verbal and sexual abuse. Rape is commonplace.
However, while there is no doubt that women face severe challenges in the mining industry, there is another side to the story. My own research from the platinum belt during and after the 2012 strike wave1 found that women workers were not only included in the workers committees by their male colleagues, but sometimes played an active role in the strike leadership. In this briefing, I will discuss how the experience of the strike began to challenge women's oppression in the platinum industry and transform the relationships between male and female mineworkers.
Background to the 2012 strike wave and formation of workers committees
On 16 August 2012, South Africa witnessed the bloodiest massacre of workers by state security forces since the end of apartheid. The world watched in horror on live television as the South African Police Service opened fire on striking mineworkers, killing 34 and injuring 78, at Lonmin's Marikana operation in the North West Province.
The workers were part of an unprecedented strike wave on the platinum belt, which had begun at Impala Platinum Holdings (Implats) at the beginning of 2012 and spread to Lonmin – South Africa's third largest platinum producer – that August. At the heart of the action was the demand for a ‘living wage’ of R12,500 – a clarion call that would be taken up by workers at other platinum mines and in the gold and coal sectors, and which would continue to spread until the end of October, when workers at Anglo American Platinum (Amplats – the largest platinum producer) returned to work (Ntswana 2014). The Lonmin strike had already been characterised by extreme violence, with 10 people – including two police officers, two security guards, two union officials and four mineworkers – killed in the week that preceded what has since become known as the ‘Marikana Massacre’ (Ibid.).
Across the platinum belt, mineworkers emphatically rejected the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Up to that point, the NUM had not only been the leading union in the mining sector but the largest in the country, and now platinum mineworkers organised themselves through independent workers committees.2
During the 2012 strike wave, the workers' revolt was spearheaded by workers committees organising outside of their trade unions. Workers who were largely members of the NUM decided to strike and negotiate directly with management through committees set up by workers and consisting entirely of worker representatives (Ntswana, 2014, 03). The shift from workers being represented by their unions to using workers committees in the 2012 strike was a defining moment in the post-apartheid labour movement. Workers indicated they had lost faith in their union, which in turn opened the space for the small Association of Mining and Construction Union (AMCU) to enter the platinum industry, quickly displacing NUM as the dominant labour organisation on the platinum belt (Mail & Guardian 2014). Moreover, women were for the first time included in these workers committees, which previously had been the exclusive preserve of male mineworkers.
Crucially, the workers committees were formed at different stages as the strike progressed across the platinum belt, and both the manner and extent to which women were included in them varied from mining house to mining house. These variations will now be explored in detail.
Women in the workers committees
My research on the platinum belt around Rustenburg suggests that when the strike started at Impala, and then spread to Lonmin, women were initially excluded from participating in the strike and in the workers committees – a point underlined by Crispen Chinguno's article in this special issue. Their absence can largely be explained by the fact that at Impala and Lonmin, the strike was initiated by the rock drill operators (RDOs) – an occupation in South African mining still exclusively held by men. This would also go some way to explaining the absence of women during the Marikana massacre itself, as the Lonmin strike was initiated and led by RDOs, who were all men.3
Moreover, whilst workers in the different mining houses organised in similar ways through workers committees, there were subtle differences in the manner in which these committees were formed and in their compositions. In Implats, where the strike began in January 2012, the workers committee was comprised of mainly Xhosa-speaking RDOs from the Eastern Cape. Dubbed the ‘Five Madoda’ – the ‘five men’, madoda being the isi-Xhosa word for men – the name of the committee was in itself telling of its male domination, signalling there was little space for women.
Impala employs over 40,000 workers (including contract workers), 500 of which are women working underground, who mostly perform auxiliary functions such as cleaning and general assistance to the male miners.4 Despite women working underground for nearly two decades, most occupations in the mine remain dominated by men. My research revealed that gender stereotypes are deeply entrenched about women's limited physical capacity and about their ability to make decisions and assume leadership positions. However, as the strike in Implats developed and spread to other occupations of the mine, pressure emerged for women to be included in the workers committees.
Explaining the precise reasons for women's inclusion at this point is not easy to determine, but as one (male) respondent from Impala (rather tellingly) put it:
We had to include women because whether we like it or not women are a part of us even though they are really just here to fill up the numbers needed and don't do much. (Interview conducted 3 September 2013)
Or, in the words of another:
They are part of us and should be included; if we want them to support us when we strike we should include them so that they know they are also fighting for themselves. (Interview conducted 5 September 2013)
A woman worker committee leader named Comfort (interview conducted October 2012) explained that women at Impala were initially doubtful about being co-opted on to the worker committees as they did not trust the RDOs. She explained that in some shafts women committee leaders had problems being accepted such that when they stood up in mass meetings to raise or explain a point, their male colleagues would simply laugh and boo as they were not ready to listen to a woman.
She further explained that this stemmed from the very patriarchal culture that most of the men are raised in, where a woman is subordinated to a man and has a status akin to a child where decision-making is concerned in traditional rural communities. She also added that most of the men, especially the RDOs, did not feel that women made a useful contribution to mining and that their sex disadvantaged them from hard mine labour. Yet Comfort also reported that the women committee leaders were eventually able to gain the respect of the male colleagues as they realised that they were useful in the leadership – especially in getting undercover information from management and the NUM, as well as sheltering committee leaders who were fearful for their lives.5
Meanwhile at Lonmin, the composition of the workers committees also changed during the strike, but for different reasons. Many workers who were interviewed explained that the committees before the Marikana massacre were composed mainly of RDOS. They included five men (similar to the Implats Madoda) from each shaft and so the workers’ committee had 15 workers equally representative of its three shafts. All the worker committee members at that time were men. However, after the massacre, the workers committees in Lonmin evolved as they had to be reconstituted given that most of the committee leaders were killed during the shooting. These reconstituted committees now included women workers who were co-opted by their male colleagues.
The women in the workers committees in both Lonmin and Impala did not participate in the actual negotiations with management. Their participation in the 2012 strike wave was therefore limited and less visible, rather they tended to play support roles. However, the workers committees at Amplats followed a very different trajectory.
Women in the Amplats workers committees
Whilst the strike in Impala and Lonmin was initiated by RDOs, at Amplats the scenario was different, as Luke Sinwell also shows in his contribution to this special issue. The workers committees in Amplats were formed in August 2012. The genesis of the Amplats strike was at the Khuseleka section of its Rustenburg operation, where winch drivers began meeting at night and initiating talks around mobilisation for wage increases. From there, the strike rapidly spread across the Rustenburg shafts to include workers from all occupations, a fact reflected at the level of worker representation.
The workers whom I interviewed at Amplats considered the process of forming the workers committees to be both democratic and participatory. According to one Amplats mineworker, Moroka (interview conducted 3 September 2013), workers who were willing to represent their colleagues from the shafts first had to volunteer, after which their names were subject to debate by all the workers at a mass meeting. The workers would then vote and choose the representatives from a list. He added that the mass of workers would look at the capabilities of the workers in question based on courage, incorruptibility and good negotiating skills.
Other workers interviewed confirmed that the worker representatives had to volunteer to take up the role. They did not want to just propose names and force people to take up the role who were unwilling, given that this would involve facing the full wrath of the mine bosses. Thabo, a winch operator from Amplats, explained:
You had to be strong and committed to be in the workers committee, we didn't want cowards or sell outs because we already had enough of that from the NUM, so when chosen you needed to also agree that you would be committed to the struggle and only push for the workers’ demands and nothing else. (Interview conducted 4 September 2013)
Women workers were for the first time included in the process from the beginning, and elected in the formation of the Amplats committees. Each shaft ensured that there were women worker representatives in each committee, unless a particular shaft had no women workers or no women workers volunteered to be part of the workers committees. Male workers interviewed from Khuseleka shaft, for instance, indicated that they felt adequately represented by the women who were part of the workers committee.
Makhanya, a male workers committee leader from Khuseleka, indicated that the women who were part of the workers committee were respected both by their colleagues within the committees and by the mass of workers:
Whereas we could not guarantee the respect for women in the workers committees from other shafts and indeed from other mining houses, the women in the workers committees in Amplats were very much respected and whenever they were reporting back the workers would listen to them and engage with them respectively. (Interview conducted 5 September 2013)
For their part, the female workers committee leaders whom I interviewed at Amplats explained that they were very happy to be part of the workers committees and volunteered because they didn't want women to be excluded from the decision-making process. As Tebogo put it:
I felt that we, as women, we always fall behind when it comes to such things. Yet we are affected by so many things. I was the only woman who stood up for women in the committee in my shaft. There were about five men and I was the only female. (Interview conducted 9 October 2013)
Tebogo went on to explain that, despite being the only female workers committee member from her shaft, she never felt undermined by her colleagues. On the contrary, she felt that they respected her and listened to her opinions:
There was no hierarchy in our workers committee and when we were doing the negotiations with management during the 2012 strike. Anyone who was in the workers committee had the same chance and whoever was ready to go and negotiate with management would do so. Sometimes people would go depending on their abilities so we all played different roles.
This was corroborated by other worker committee members from Amplats interviewed during the research. Many respondents indicated that during negotiations with management, the committees did not always send the same people but would suggest different delegates depending on the demands or context. They tried to ensure that delegations included representatives from different shafts and not just one shaft. Eventually, a consistent few were chosen to be part of the negotiations to follow up on issues, while other committee members played vital roles to keep the strike going until the demands were met such as planning and strategising, and mobilising the workers.
Tebogo also explained that women felt that being part of the committee not only made them part of the decision-making process, but also provided an opportunity to table issues that were affecting women in mining.
At the same time, however, another female workers committee member from Amplats, Nomfundiso (a pseudonym), explained that it was not easy being a woman on the committee as they were still expected to play the role of a wife and mother:
It wasn't easy, you know as women you want to see to the home and the children after work, meanwhile which might be the same time we have to meet because the meetings would take place anytime depending on what was happening, as women we also had to be ready for this. (Interview conducted 7 September 2013)
Nevertheless, she indicated that she was still happy to be part of the committee because it gave her an opportunity to relay the concerns that specifically affected the women in the shafts, which her male counterparts would not necessarily have been aware of:
The men listened to us and never undermined our input and this was very good. Working in mining as women is difficult because it's looked at as a man's world and I suppose sometimes men feel like their territory has been invaded. But during this strike, there was nothing like men or women: we all got together because we were all fighting for the same thing. I felt that the committees included us more than the unions, as they invited us to even table issues affecting us as women working underground.
Nomfundiso, like many other women working in the industry, indicated that they felt let down by the NUM, the union they had previously joined. They indicated that the failure of the union to address their many and persistent problems was a pivotal push for the women to join the strike, the workers committees and ultimately another union, the AMCU. The women complained that for years they were members of the NUM in the hope that some of the challenges they faced – ranging from lower salaries than those of their male counterparts, lack of elevation/promotion, limited maternity leave, heat stress, poor sanitation, poor safety and inappropriate work suits – remained unaddressed.
Nomfundiso added that it was even worse when a female mineworker complained about verbal, physical or sexual abuse by male colleagues, as the union would label the women lazy:
The NUM really let us down, they set up a desk for women in one of the offices but when we had real issues they remained unresolved. If you tried to push the issue you are labelled lazy or a trouble maker. This is why the workers committees are good for me because they listen. Yes, I know they may not deliver everything but they are listening and now that we are all in AMCU, we can address these issues together.
Benya (2013b) argues that because of the historical absence of women in mining, the established unions like NUM are only familiar with issues relating to men in mining. Comfort from Implats explained that when women went to the NUM offices to complain, their complaints or challenges would be trivialised and they would be told to just deal with the situation:
It's like we were a bother to them, they would say ‘you wanted to work in the mine, now all you do is complain because you have seen that the job is hard, for hard men … You must deal with it if you want to keep your job’. … can you imagine? This is why we are happy with the workers committee, they include us in things.
By including women in these decision-making bodies, the workers committees not only gained the support of the women, but made women confident that the masculine culture in mining was shifting. By the same token, some of the male mineworkers whom I interviewed explained that they appreciated the women in the committees and had confidence in them. This shift in the sexist attitudes of male mineworkers perhaps supports Benya's (2013b) contention that women bring new values and skills to mining which their male counterparts only began to appreciate through the experience of striking together. As one male mineworker from Amplats explained:
You know the women committee members were even more aggressive and courageous than the men and we understood this because they are even harder hit by the low salaries and poor working and living conditions than us. So for them, it's even more painful and much closer to the heart. We had to nominate women to be part of the committees; we could not afford to isolate them because we work together. (Interview conducted 27 August 2013)
However, while women's active involvement in the worker committees began to challenge and transform the sexist attitudes of their male comrades, they hit a brick wall when it came to management. Despite women being part of the committees and tabling issues affecting them, my research found that issues brought forward by women committee members were rarely taken on board by the mine managers. This, it seems, was because management was not ready to address issues affecting what they saw as only a ‘small’ and relatively marginal percentage of the workforce. They instead wanted to look at the ‘bigger picture’ with a promise to address ‘other issues’ after all workers had returned to work. This would seem to reinforce Benya's (2013b) and Chinguno's (2013) observation that mine management tends to carry and reinforce chauvinist attitudes, shelving the issues highlighted by women and trivialising their concerns. But it also suggests the potentially transformative role of the class struggle itself (Barker 2013).
Conclusion
Despite the fact that mining houses are under pressure by government to reach the 10% quota of women workers set by the Mining Charter, the industry largely remains male dominated. There are very few women especially working underground. According to an Anglo American human resources review (Anglo American 2012), the employment of African women in the sector remains a major challenge.
It was largely men who led and drove the worker strikes and protests in 2012. However, during the strike, and particularly at Amplats, women were not excluded from positions of leadership in the workers committees but were incorporated as worker committee leaders. Male workers explained that even though there were not that many women workers in the platinum mines, they acknowledged that most of them faced particular challenges. Working in the mining industry was itself a daily struggle, but women also carried a huge domestic burden. Many were single parents or breadwinners for large families without any other support.
Many women also indicated that they remained hopeful that the changes pioneered by the workers committees would be entrenched in AMCU, and that the new union would fight for improved conditions for women in mining. Yet, when I returned to my respondents nearly two years later during the 2014 platinum strike, I found that only one woman was part of the top seven officials from AMCU negotiating with management, and this was the branch secretary at Impala mine. It therefore remains to be seen whether the challenges confronting women in mining will be taken seriously by AMCU, or whether it will merely replicate the problems of NUM. Nevertheless, the fact that women attained leadership positions during the 2012 dispute was a very important first step. It began to challenge gender oppression and boosted the women's morale; they were recognised and included in the processes of decision-making. However, for there to be a long-term change and sustainable transformation of the position of female mineworkers, mine management and unions will need to do more than just offer short-term appeasements. Women's concerns need to be addressed and their representation embedded in union structures and workplace practices. So far, the gains that have been made within the mine workforce have come from the common experience of struggle.