Luke Sinwell - The Spirit of Marikana: The Rise of Insurgent Trade Unionism in South Africa

The Spirit of Marikana

Wildcat: Workers Movements and Global Capitalism

Series Editors:
Peter Alexander (University of Johannesburg)
Immanuel Ness (City University of New York)
Tim Pringle (SOAS, University of London)
Malehoko Tshoaedi (University of Pretoria)

Workers movements are a common and recurring feature in contemporary capitalism. The same militancy that inspired the mass labor movements of the twentieth century continues to define worker struggles that proliferate throughout the world today.

For more than a century labor unions have mobilized to represent the political-economic interests of workers by uncovering the abuses of capitalism, establishing wage standards, improving oppressive working conditions, and bargaining with employers and the state. Since the 1970s, organized labor has declined in size and influence as the global power and influence of capital has expanded dramatically. The world over, existing unions are in a condition of fracture and turbulence in response to neoliberalism, financialization, and the reappearance of rapacious forms of imperialism. New and modernized unions are adapting to conditions and creating class-conscious workers movement rooted in militancy and solidarity. Ironically, while the power of organized labor contracts, working-class militancy and resistance persists and is growing in the Global South.

Wildcat publishes ambitious and innovative works on the history and political economy of workers movements and is a forum for debate on pivotal movements and labor struggles. The series applies a broad definition of the labor movement to include workers in and out of unions, and seeks works that examine proletarianization and class formation; mass production; gender, affective and reproductive labor; imperialism and workers; syndicalism and independent unions, and labor and Leftist social and political movements.

Also available:

Just Work? Migrant Workers Struggles Today
Edited by Aziz Choudry and Mondli Hlatshwayo

Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class
Immanuel Ness

The Spirit of
Marikana

The Rise of Insurgent Trade Unionism
in South Africa

Luke Sinwell

with Siphiwe Mbatha

First published 2016 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright Luke Sinwell 2016

The right of Luke Sinwell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7453 3653 4 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 3648 0 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7837 1968 6 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7837 1970 9 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7837 1969 3 EPUB eBook

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.

Typeset by Curran Publishing Services, Norwich
Text design by Melanie Patrick

Simultaneously printed in the European Union and United States of America

Contents

Glossary of South African Organisations

This section is intended particularly for those who are unfamiliar with the South African political context.

AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS (ANC)

With its anti-apartheid credentials, the ANC has remained the hegemonic political party in South Africa since the first democratic elections in 1994. Especially under the leadership of the charismatic Nelson Mandela (but also under his successor Thabo Mbeki), the ANC had historically been viewed countrywide as a liberator of black people, rather than their oppressor. After the massacre, this began to change dramatically as many across the country, including mineworkers themselves, have come to see the ANC as an anti-working-class and even murderous organisation. Hence, the votes which the ANC received in the 2014 national elections declined significantly in each province except Kwa-Zulu Natal. Jacob Zuma, who is the president of the ANC, lambasted the strikes in the platinum belt, and at different points in time essentially blamed the strikers for the deaths of 34 of their fellows on 16 August 2012.

ASSOCIATION OF MINEWORKERS AND CONSTRUCTION UNION (AMCU)

The union was founded after a spat within the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Joseph Mathunjwa, who was a leading branch chairperson of the num in the late 1990s at Douglas Colliery, had a fall-out with Gwede Mantashe, then general secretary of the num (Mantashe is now the general secretary of the ANC). Workers believed Mathunjwa was being undermined, and they went on strike underground in his defence. They then asked him to form a new union. It was officially registered in 2001 and by 2012, in the lead-up to the Marikana massacre, it had a growing, but relatively small, presence in the platinum belt particularly at Karee, one of the shafts at Lonmin. While the AMCU did not initiate the strike action at Lonmin or any of the three major platinum mines in 2012, workers joined the AMCU en masse throughout 2012. The unions dominance was a product of support from the independent worker committees. By 2013 the union dethroned the NUM as the major miners union in the Rustenburg platinum belt, and had about 120,000 members. In 2014 the AMCU led workers in what became the longest strike in South African mining history. The unions official T-shirts are green, and for many across the country they symbolise the necessity for independent working-class mobilisation. As this book goes to print, it is at best questionable whether the union, with its apolitical stance, will position itself as a vanguard of a broader and long-term working-class fight for a socialist future in South Africa and beyond.

CONGRESS OF SOUTH AFRICAN TRADE UNIONS (COSATU)

COSATU has been one of the most important organisations of the working class in South Africa since it was formed in 1985. The federation joined in a tripartite alliance with the ANC and the South African Community Party (SACP) in 1990, and played a major role throughout the transition period and into democracy. More recently, the general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi was expelled, the num declined and the NUMSA, currently the largest South African union, was expelled from the federation, so COSATU is now in crisis nationally. Many mineworkers in the belt continue to believe that the num, COSATU and the tripartite alliance itself (see below) played a key role in the Marikana massacre.

DEMOCRATIC LEFT FRONT (DLF)

The DLF was initially formed as an anti-capitalist umbrella organisation under the title Conference of the Democratic Left (CDL) in 2008. From its inception, it opposed the ANCs neoliberal programmes. In 2011 a national conference brought together activists and in particular leaders of civic bodies from all over the country, and the cdl was renamed dlf. The organisation responded quickly and decisively following the unprotected strikes in the platinum belt in 2012. The dlf was instrumental in the formation and activities of the Marikana Support Campaign (MSC) as well as the Gauteng Strike Support Committee (GSSC).

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST MOVEMENT (DSM)

A socialist organisation in South Africa, the dsm was working with leaders in the platinum belt as early as 2009. When Amplats workers went on strike in September 2012, the dsm sought to build a strike committee which would unite workers from various companies in the platinum belt and beyond. They also formed a political party, the Workers and Socialist Party (WASP), in 2013. The party received just over 8,000 votes in the 2014 national elections.