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City Press reports that the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) has vowed to fight to take over mines that were planning to close their operations because of nonprofitability.
Delivering his inaugural speech shortly after being re-elected as Amcu’s president for another five-year term, Joseph Mathunjwa said the union wanted to take mines which had indicated that a shutdown might be imminent, because “the minerals belong to our people and government is just the custodian”. To cheers and applause from hundreds of delegates who attended the union’s elective congress last week, Mathunjwa stated: “No mine must shut down because it is not making profit. If they want to close the mine, then we are taking it. No mine should be mothballed because of super profits, and for any mine that does so, we will be taking it over. We will go to the department of mineral resources and tell them that because they are our servants, we want that [mining] licence. We cannot be held ransom by monopoly capital. We will take back what belongs to us. We do not owe anyone an apology.” Mathunjwa also said the union needed to build agricultural academies in the various provinces to train retrenched mine workers to farm. Speaking on the sidelines of the congress, Krister Janse van Rensburg, Amcu’s head of organisational development, advised that the union had resolved to combine the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Mine Health and Safety Act.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Lesetja Malope at City Press
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