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Business Report writes that the deaths of four mine workers following a rockfall on Saturday at the Tau Lekoa gold mine in Orkney, North West, has sent shock waves across the mining industry.
The mine is owned by Hong Kong-listed Heaven-Sent Gold. The gold sector's biggest trade union, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), blamed management for the fatalities, saying they could have been prevented. The union alleged that employees who were at the scene had managed to rescue one of the miners but management had stopped the team leaders and winch drivers from rescuing four other mineworkers who were still trapped underground. NUM president Joseph Montisetse said the employees informed him that they were deliberately stopped from rescuing the four other trapped mineworkers by a "white proto team". Montisetse indicated as follows: “Our members told us that if they had been allowed to rescue those four mineworkers on Friday afternoon, they could have been found and rescued alive. These lily-white proto teams do not care about the lives of black mineworkers. They care about making money (rather) than saving the lives of the trapped black mineworkers. It is our members who rescued the only mineworker who was found alive, not the lily-white proto teams.” Montisetse said the union was also concerned that there was no escape route in the working area where the four mineworkers were found dead. He added that that the state should hold the industry fully accountable for its failures.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Dineo Faku at Business Report
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page