Ghost Towns Haunt South Africa’s Strike-Hit Platinum Belt

Shad Mohammed’s electronics and
household store in South Africa’s
platinum belt has survived a series of
mining strikes over the 14 years it has
been serving customers in the dusty
town of Marikana.
Yet with the latest stoppage now in its
10th week, he has sold just 10 phones
instead of well over 100, and has had to
branch out into deliveries to avoid
giving up and going home to Pakistan,
another statistic in a devastating
industrial dispute.
“Our business is totally dependent on
the mine workers,” Mohammed, 38, said
among shelves filled with cell phones,
laptops and large pots. “If they don’t
work we really suffer.”
Members of the Association of
Mineworkers and Construction Union
(AMCU) have downed tools at Lonmin,
the main employer in the tough town of
Marikana, and rivals Anglo American
Platinum and Impala Platinum in a
strike over wages, hitting 40 percent of
global production.
The stoppage shows no sides of ending
with the two sides still poles apart.
AMCU wants a basic-entry level wage in
three years of 12,500 rand ($1,200) a
month, or annual hikes of around 30
percent, while the companies have
offered increases of up to 9 percent and
say they can afford no more.
The strike, the biggest in South Africa’s
mines in living memory, has so far cost
companies and workers a collective 17
billion rand ($1.60 billion) in revenue
and wages, according to a tally updated
constantly on an industry website. here
The central bank said last week the
continuing stoppage was a key threat to
economic growth, now forecast at 2.6
percent in 2014 instead of 2.8 percent.
Exports from Africa’s largest economy
and its rand currency are also
vulnerable.
Lonmin chief executive Ben Magara said
on Thursday that collectively the
industry was spending 67 million rand a
day less than usual on goods and
services, mostly in the local economies
on the platinum belt northwest of
Johannesburg.
All three companies have said they have
declared force majeure with some of
their suppliers and contractors, a legal
term which allows companies to
suspend payments and deliveries
because of circumstances beyond their
control.