Marikana (South Africa) – South Africa`s platinum strike continues and many families struggle to put food on the table.
One miner’s wife Nomfanelo Jali has not been able to feed her family in a month.
Jali`s husband is one of the miners who downed tools along with 80,000 other platinum miners, vowing not to return to the shafts until their minimum monthly wage was doubled to 12,500 rand, around $1,186.
Struggling families are surviving from handouts from the government, friends or extended family.
“We haven’t eaten meat in a month, my children are crying for meat,” she said.
The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) trenchantly says it will not budge, despite members losing nearly five billion rand ($470 million) in wages already.
Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), Impala Platinum (Implats) and Lonmin the world top three platinum producers insist the wage demands are unrealistic and would put mines out of business.
“At times I have sleepless nights,” said Wendy Pretorius, a single mother of three, who lives off her father who works at Lonmin.
It is now just a cruel irony that Marikana’s residents live meters above the world’s largest reserves of platinum — a metal used in everything from catalytic converters to jewellery.
“If they don’t go back to work very soon, Marikana is going to be a ghost town,” warns a shop owner who asked not be named for fear of being targeted by the militant union members.
“Shops are closing down” he said.
Union leader Jeff Mpahlele admits “there’s suffering” and hardship, but is unrelenting.
“If we miss this opportunity, we’ll never correct the wrongs that have been there for ages,” said Mpahlele, who is AMCU’s secretary general.
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