Gold mining industry under fire

THE mining industry has consistently refused to take responsibility for the destruction of communities and ecosystems for more than 100 years, a local civil society organisation has said.

It is against this background that the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI) published a book ‘Gold mining companies in Africa – workers’ experiences’. The booklet forms part of the African Social Observatory project, which is co-ordinated by the National Labour and Economic Development Institute on behalf of the African Labour Research Network (ALRN).It examined the behaviour of three leading gold producers in Africa, namely Gold Fields, Anglogold Ashanti and Morex.Special attention was given to labour relations and working conditions, company restructuring, HIV-AIDS policies and practices, health and safety and environmental issues and social responsibility programmes in South Africa, Ghana, Namibia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia.Speaking at the launch in Windhoek on Wednesday, author and LaRRi’s Head of Research and Education Herbert Jauch, protested that as long as 90 per cent of the wealth created by gold mines leaves Africa, the plundering of the continent’s resources would continue.”Social investments by mining companies are important and should be welcome but on their own, they are not sufficient compensation for the profits made by these companies and the damage caused by their operations.It is high time that Africans receive their fair share,” he noted.Jauch said although most of the multinational gold mining companies adhere to national legislation, they do not always implement the collective agreements reached with the unions.Workers’ rights are best protected where unions are strong and thus able to force the companies to respect them.Another concern for him, was that unions have been unable to halt the alarming trend of ever-increasing income gaps between mineworkers and executive managers.This should certainly be placed high on the agenda of the unions in the years to come.A member of the National Executive Committee of SA’s National Union of Mine Workers, Peter Bailey, indicated that the negative spin-offs of gold mining on communities, workers and families in Africa were astonishing.When mining explorers enter villages, land rights were lost by the communities, with little and sometimes no compensation by the mining company, he said.Bailey noted that the physical well-being of workers was generally considered second to the pursuit of profits.Gold mining operations result in long-term damages and clean-up costs, which are extremely expensive for the host countries.He highlighted that mining activities were temporary and thus African countries needed to gain maximum benefits during its lifespan.According to him, all too often mining companies are allowed to dictate terms and derive huge incomes from Africa’s resources with few benefits for African workers and their communities.NampaThe booklet forms part of the African Social Observatory project, which is co-ordinated by the National Labour and Economic Development Institute on behalf of the African Labour Research Network (ALRN).It examined the behaviour of three leading gold producers in Africa, namely Gold Fields, Anglogold Ashanti and Morex.Special attention was given to labour relations and working conditions, company restructuring, HIV-AIDS policies and practices, health and safety and environmental issues and social responsibility programmes in South Africa, Ghana, Namibia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia.Speaking at the launch in Windhoek on Wednesday, author and LaRRi’s Head of Research and Education Herbert Jauch, protested that as long as 90 per cent of the wealth created by gold mines leaves Africa, the plundering of the continent’s resources would continue.”Social investments by mining companies are important and should be welcome but on their own, they are not sufficient compensation for the profits made by these companies and the damage caused by their operations.It is high time that Africans receive their fair share,” he noted.Jauch said although most of the multinational gold mining companies adhere to national legislation, they do not always implement the collective agreements reached with the unions.Workers’ rights are best protected where unions are strong and thus able to force the companies to respect them.Another concern for him, was that unions have been unable to halt the alarming trend of ever-increasing income gaps between mineworkers and executive managers.This should certainly be placed high on the agenda of the unions in the years to come.A member of the National Executive Committee of SA’s National Union of Mine Workers, Peter Bailey, indicated that the negative spin-offs of gold mining on communities, workers and families in Africa were astonishing.When mining explorers enter villages, land rights were lost by the communities, with little and sometimes no compensation by the mining company, he said.Bailey noted that the physical well-being of workers was generally considered second to the pursuit of profits.Gold mining operations result in long-term damages and clean-up costs, which are extremely expensive for the host countries.He highlighted that mining activities were temporary and thus African countries needed to gain maximum benefits during its lifespan.According to him, all too often mining companies are allowed to dictate terms and derive huge incomes from Africa’s resources with few benefits for African workers and their communities.Nampa