A Personal View – April 2014
South Africa has not experienced a strike of this intensity & magnitude since Cyril Ramaphosa led NUM [The National Union of Mineworkers] to strike on the mines in the mid-eighties.
However this strike will be a seminal event for many reasons. This comes hard on the heels of the Marikana Massacre in 2013. If for no other reason, this factor will make the mine workers less amenable to a mediocre wages increase. But more importantly, given Joseph Mathunjwa’s loathing of NUM, his former Union, he would like to settle scores with them after his less than amicable departure from his former Union. He is determined to prove a point against NUM as well as the mine bosses.