Fire in their bellies

16 May 2014 - 02:17 By Sipho Masombuka
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HAZARDOUS ROAD: A mineworker takes a back route home after his shift at a mine on North West's embattled platinum belt
HAZARDOUS ROAD: A mineworker takes a back route home after his shift at a mine on North West's embattled platinum belt

When hunger bit the striking mineworkers, Evelyn Moekwa, of Wonderkop, near Marikana, stepped in to feed them and their families.

For the past three weeks she has been laying on two meals a day for the ravenous strikers, which has cost her more than R11000 so far.

Her daughter, Bella Antiti, who coordinates the scheme, said they feed more than 150 people a day but might have to stop soon because they were running out of money.

"They keep coming, even after meal times, and it hurts to tell them that there's nothing left. It would be even worse if we had to tell them we can't afford to do it any more," she said.

Striking mineworkers in North West's platinum belt have had no income for more than three months now and there is no end in sight to the strike for a R12500-a-month entry-level salary.

Lonmin, one of the three mining companies hit by the strike, yesterday said it might ask a court to declare the strike dysfunctional because of the strike-related violence and the intimidation of strikers wanting to go back to work.

"We cannot have people intimidated and terrorised in the way we have seen happening," Lonmin's Lerato Molebatse said.

The company yesterday stopped its SMS campaign in which it appealed to striking mineworkers to report for work.

Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa has threatened to take Lonmin to court, claiming that the campaign contravened the Labour Relations Act.

The companies said they would defend their right to communicate with their employees.

Molebatse said the strike was hurting Lonmin and it would have to consider restructuring if the stoppage continued.

She did not specify what the restructuring would entail but said it would inevitably mean the laying-off of workers.

She said the company wanted to return to negotiating because it was the only way to end the strike.

Lonmin, Anglo American Platinum and Impala Platinum have had as many as 70 000 workers on strike since end of January.

The three - the largest platinum producers in the world - claim that the strike had by yesterday cost them R18-billion and that mineworkers had lostR8-billion in wages.

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