SOME intriguing facts are emerging from the wildcat strikes sweeping the mining industry. Notable among them is that the leaders appear to be fairly young, tolerably well educated and reasonably fluent in English.
They are also, it seems, energetic followers of former African National Congress Youth League president Julius Malema. And their ideological belief appears to be rooted in anarchism, meaning in this case a general opposition to authority or the organisation applied in the conduct of human affairs. This is exactly what happened during the haphazard negotiations between the industry and the hapless National Union of Mineworkers, which has been caught in the crossfire.
As Gold Fields CEO Nick Holland observed during a media briefing on Tuesday, there is a clear disconnect between the older generation of mineworkers, who are signalling a desire to get back to work, and the younger breed who are having a fine time destroying assets, attacking police stations, intimidating those who want to work, indulging in wanton violence and murder, and creating a miasma of fear.
There is in addition, he said, a legacy issue between older mines where mechanisation is less advanced and young mines, such as South Deep, where it is much better developed. South Deep provides good opportunities for skilled and semi-skilled employees and that mine has been unaffected (so far) by the wildcat strike virus.
Holland also said it is important for the mining industry to examine the strike syndrome and learn lessons from it. He wants a forum to be established at which new strategies can be thrashed out and refined. This puzzles me, because it’s reinventing the wheel. A perfectly good forum, Mining Dialogues 360º, has been working hard for some time.
Operating under the auspices of the prestigious South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Mining Dialogues was first supported financially by Royal Bafokeng Holdings and now receives funding from other companies such as Rio Tinto, Impala Platinum and AngloGold Ashanti.
Meanwhile, Gold Fields is the first of the major gold houses to indicate its preparedness to start dismissing employees who fail to report for work. About 15,000 of them have until 2pm today to comply. The 6,200 strikers at three shafts of Gold Fields’ Beatrix mine in the Free State have already returned to work.
No one should want a wholesale firing. While it may send an appropriate message about the need for discipline and a proper assessment by employees of their own circumstances, the thought of yet another 15,000 men (in addition to the 12,000 fired by Anglo American Platinum) out of work — and, by extension, the well-being of perhaps as many as half-a-million dependents and workers in secondary industries — compounds the problems of an already fractured social contract.
THE bell has sounded for the first round of a knock-down fight between Damille Investments, a closed-ended investment company listed on the Specialist Fund Market of the London Stock Exchange (LSE), and Blackstar Group, listed on the LSE’s AIM and the JSE’s AltX.
Damille, which holds 18% in Blackstar, has requisitioned an extraordinary general meeting. Effectively, it wants to force through a dividend distribution policy and is saying it has little or no confidence in Blackstar’s managers.
Blackstar, which has a sizeable stake in the Mvelaphanda Group, says it has irrevocable undertakings from 50.1% of shareholders to vote against any resolution that may jeopardise its investment policy. It has urged shareholders to vote against Damille’s resolutions.
The gloves are off.
ON TUESDAY, I wrote at length about the proposed revised broad-based black economic empowerment codes, to which Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies wants to give statutory power. My attention has now been drawn to the Private Security Industry Regulation Amendment Bill.
The industry has exploded in recent years and employs more than 400,000 active security personnel.
This has given the government a severe case of terrified twitches. It cites "in particular, the threat to national security posed by the participation of foreigners". It wants all companies involved in security to be 51%-owned by South Africans within five years — and security includes guarding, cash-in-transit services, electronics, locksmithing, and fire protection services.
The big problem is that this probably runs counter to the World Trade Organisation’s general agreement to trade services commitments. South Africa has agreed to give full market access and national treatment commitments to investigation and security services.
More than that, however, this needs to be looked at alongside the decision by the Department of Trade and Industry to terminate South Africa’s bilateral investment treaties with European Union countries as these reach their expiry. What can be read into this is the firm intention of an element in this government (read the South African Communist Party) to close the economy, step-by-step, to western influence by restricting the commercial involvement of investors from countries which embrace western culture and ideals. It fits perfectly with the position of Julius Malema, who told guests at a recent Zimbabwean wedding that their country is an inspiration to Africa because it has removed all external controls.
Davies isn’t worried. There are plenty of investors from other parts of the world, he says, who are happy to become involved in this country without any of the annoying safeguards provided by bilateral investment agreements. You can bet that what he means is China and Chinese investors. Davies is a communist; so are the Chinese. Achieving a dominant Chinese position in this economy would make him very happy.
Whether that would benefit South Africa is another matter.
• For those interested, watch CNBC Africa at 9pm on Thursday for a panel debate involving Davies and Free Market Foundation members.
