Cry the beloved industry

Abstract

FOCUS □ WORKERS'RIGHTSINFORMALANDINFORMAL MINING Cry the beloved industry Dave Feickerthas been workinginChinaand New Zealand since 2004. His airfareforhis week-long visitto SouthAfricainearlySeptember was paid forbyNZ Quakers and the Cape TownQuaker Peace Centrehelped, too.This is thefourth timehe has made professionalvisitsto SouthAfrica. Anyone in industry a profound who cannot has way. help worked This butbe happens in affected the mining to by you it industry cannothelpbutbe affected by it in a profound way. Thishappensto you every day.Itseeps intoyourvery bones,coming to resideinyoursoul.The miners arethebackbone oftheir industry. Theyproducethewealth and theymakethenews - beingrescuedfrom deep underground in Chile,goingon strike for payandevenrevolting against their government. Iftheyfight betweenthemselves, as theyhave intheUK during theminers' strike 1984-85 oras theyhave done morerecently in SouthAfrica, thenthey areevenmorenewsworthy. The miners, as HaroldMacmillan said,arethe bestmenintheworld. That, he said,in1984duringtheUK yearlongstrike, when,he, a former ToryPrimeMinister, was speakingin the UK House of Lords,as MrsThatcher, another Tory Prime Minister was trying tocrushtheUK NUM. Simply, itappliesto all oftheworld'sminers. Without themwe wouldnotbe able to support moderncivilisation. The minersare passionate men and they are dreamers.Their unions dreamedthe dreamsthatbroughtus a more socially justsociety. Theirdetermination tomake their ownlivessafebrought muchsafer practices totherestoftheworking population. It was no accidentthat Lord Robens, the Chairman of the NationalCoal Board ('NCB'), was asked to deliverwhathas become known around theworldas theRobensReport on health andsafety atwork.UndertheNCB,Britain hada uniquely effective safety and healthsystem. Not onlyhasthis report formed thebasisofUKhealth and safety law since1974,now added to byEU law,ithasdoneso inAustralia, NewZealandand many other countries. Miningis a huge global industry, employing millions, producinggreatwealth.Some mines producethebullion heldbycentral banks;others producethediamond on weddingrings toadorn graceful, bridal fingers; others, minetheplatinum, usedinthecatalytic converters that makeourcars cleaner andstill others producebillions oftonnes ofenergy forourpowerandsteelplants. In South Africa there areminesproducing allof these. Theminers there havebeendigging for well overa century. Thishasputgreat wealthintothe pocketsof thosewho own thegiantcompanies operating there. Fewoftheinvestors actually live there, thesedays.Thismayconfer greatwealth, but,especially thesedaysitconfers greatsocial responsibility. We arewaiting tosee thisenacted. Yet,compared withtheir brothers inthedeveloped countries, often working forthesamecompanies ,miners in SouthAfrica makeonly10-15 percentof theirpay - ifwe take the striking Lonmin rockdrillers as a case inpoint. Moreover, benchmarked against theworld's safest mines - in Australia - SouthAfrican miners havea 5-10times higher riskofbeingkilledatwork.The differentialdependsonthetype ofmine, running through gold,platinum to coal. Is itanysurprise, therefore , that miners inSouthAfrica areasking why? Butperhapstheworststatistic ofall -and the least well known - is the numberof South Africanminers suffering from lung disease causedbydust.Whilethetotal figure for alltypes ofmining is unknown, as thestudiesare yetto be done, the South Africagovernment's own Department of Labourcalculatesthatthereare 480,000former gold miners (manynow back in theirruralhomesin othercountries) who have silicosis.Moreover,manyof these have been made moresusceptible to Tuberculosis and the migrantlabour systemhas pushed rates of HIV/AIDS very highindeed.Theoverall lungand relateddisease burdenin SouthAfrica is quite possibly higher thanevenChina'swerethere are 7 millionminers, or fivetimesthe numberin SouthAfrica. Quite frankly, thisis an obscenity. The rich world,whichhas been addingvaluefrom South African mineoutput for morethan100years, now mustfaceup to itssocialresponsibilities. No way canonegovernment dealwith sucha scaleoftragic damage.Thislastweek I havebeen in South Africa, meeting withthemainplayers tosee what theinternational community cando tohelp,especiallyon health.Unlessminersare shownthe respect that comesfrom effective safety andhealth programmes, medicalsurveillance, compensation and treatment programmes, therewillbe miners whobelievethey havenothing tolosewhenthey strike. Theymight be killed whenthey strike, but they surely knowthey arelikely todieatwork, or after retiring. Mysuggested modelfor international actionis based on whattheinternational mining community didtogetthe33miners up tothesurfacefrom 700metres down.Drilling teamsflewin from around theworldandbegantheriveting race against time - survival time. From Beijing, I worked witha Chineseadvancedfibre opticscompany to offer this, too,which we didviatheChilean ambassadorinLondon , withLordPrescott's help. Butthebestexampleofall ofthiskindofcooperation isChinaitself. TheUSrana $2.4million co-operation project on coal minesafety withthe Chinesecolleaguesfor four years.I was theindependentevaluatorof thishighly successful cooperation . TheEU hasjustbeguna 9 million euro programme withtheChinesecolleagueson safetyand healthin thehighriskindustries thatwill also runforfour years.TheAustralians, theNew Zealanders, theJapanesegovernments havealso been helping.Now it is SouthAfrica's turnto receive helpandallthosebillionaire mining companiesmustcometotheparty , too. The world's minerssupport modern civilisation. Theirunions dreamed the dreams that broughtus a moresocially just society DAVE FEICKERT isaNew Zealand international mine safety adviser. He was head of research for the UK NUM for 10 years in the 80s and 90s, followed by 10years asthe TUC's Brussels representative. Page 7Volume 19Issue 3201 2 INTERNATIONAL union rights ...