Sanlam places mine workers in it’s two most high risk categories.
Sheqafrica.com reports that mining deaths are down but that this is attributed to the fact that fewer man hours were worked so miners were placed at less personal risk. Check out the stats yourself, what you’ll see is that platinum mine deaths and injuries are amongst the highest.
According to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights:
- all companies are responsible for protecting human rights throughout their operations
- all companies must openly disclose how issues impacting negatively on human rights are addressed
In the report Problematic Platinum – Swedwatch looks at how Scania, Volvo, Atlas Copco and Sandvik address human rights risks throughout their business operations. These Swedish companies are either suppliers to the South African mining industry or buyers of platinum. The report explains that these companies do not adequately communicate how risks to human rights within the platinum industry in South Africa are identified and reduced.
A Snapshot of Strike Impacts
- Less foreign money coming in and being used to build our economy and create jobs. Other African countries are preferred.
- Mines have produced less, so there’s a drop in profitability and sustainability
- We’re viewed as an unstable, possible anarchists and maybe unpredictable (my interpretation of volatile)
- Mines are closing in time to secure executive investments but make little or no provisions for the mine-working-now-newly-retrenched
- People are surviving by ‘lending’ money from micro lenders. (Did you know Sanlam also considers debt collecting as high risk?)
- Mineworkers don’t drive to work in those hatchback deals, they live in shitty hostels or shacks as close to the site as possible. This state of perpetual self denial is in order to save money and send it home to families. Sadly, there’s not much money going home these days. A night out for the sweat free exec is the equivalent of a months groceries for some mining families.
This simple info graphic highlights these intersecting strike impacts.
Life SA 