Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-13

MR GLAMINI: Thank you.  My question is around the issue of violence between groups of workers in the Mining Industry.  Just as an illustration.  In one of the hearings, in Natal, the Truth Commission hearings, we listened to the evidence to the effect that the group of people, amongst whom were workers of that particular mine and others were outside, but they all belonged to a political group, were allowed inside, heavily armed, to assault and I think a few people died during the incident, people who were known to be belonging to a different political affiliation.
 As I was listening to that evidence, I ask myself that the violence tends to be a pattern in the Mining Industry and we tend to think naively that it's just based on ethnisism, the Xhosas not wanting to associate with the Zulus.  The Zulus not wanting to associate with the Basothos.  
 Then I ask myself that how much of it is a deliberate strategy to divide the workers.  What is the involvement of management, setting (indistinct) or conditions which will be   to that kind of situation.
 I'm not expecting to answer for that particular mine, because - yes, as I said that is a pattern and that suggest to me that we need to look deeply into the even so-called ethnic faction fights.

MR GODSELL: I mean, if I could just briefly begin, I think you're absolutely right.  There has been a long history of tragic violence in the Mining Industry.
 I think anybody who seeks to reduce this to mere ethnic tensions is kidding himself.  I think equally that the housing of large numbers of people in single sex hostels, creates a context where it's much easier for that kind of violence to take place.
 In the industry over the last decade there has been a great deal of engagement about this issue.  There had been a number of commissions of enquiry by independent and outside parties.  I think there has been a pattern in times past of the ethnic housing of people in hostels, I think people have largely seen that as an undesirable practise in the future.
 In the end, you know, I think and I'm sorry to return to a frame, but a lot of the issues that we are dealing with, can be dealt with only by the actors immediately agreeing a way forward.
 If I can just be for one moment permitted to speak about my own group, because it's the concrete response after a decade of very intense violence on our mines and it was violence that had many different - it was unionised and non-unionised workers.
 It was apparently ethnic in some instances.  It was management versus workers in many instances.  We, over a period of three years, negotiated a code of conduct with NUM.  The first point of which was that both management and union would take full responsibility for the actions of everybody in a sense on their side.  Right down to the first line supervisor, the security supervisor on the management side and down to union stewards on the union side.
 The second point of this code to decide what kind of space the hostel was.  Was it a space in which workers had the right of freedom of assembly, freedom of protest, freedom to march, freedom to picket.  So looking at the rights of parties was a very important part.
 The third element, was to specifically look at those actions which could instigate violence.  That's a document that has certainly contributed, in our minds, to a dramatic decline in violence of any of these three kinds.  Union versus non-unionised, union versus management or worker versus management and ethnic.
 I think that's the road forward.  I mean what you do is you create a sense of shared norms and laws that govern the way people behave in both the work place and also where they live.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Thank you, gentlemen.  You may...
 I ask the COSATU delegation to come forward and whilst you're doing that, let me repeat what I said earlier on, because the delegation was not here at the time.
 I have already said and given the reasons why the delegation will be given more time.  We hope we don't have to bite too much into the lunch hour.  I've also said that we notified groupings where particular accusations were made by COSATU and of course some of those groupings have responded.  I understand the JANCO group have responded and COSATU has got that document, as well as NAMPAK.
 So, please bear that in mind as you make your submission, gentlemen.

MR KOMAMA: On my left I've got the first general secretary since this submission was (indistinct), comrade Jay Naidoo.  On my right I've got the current general secretary, Sam Selone.  At the back I've got Tifo who is our lawyer, comrade Paul Benjamin.  These are our lawyers that work very close to us during the Apartheid time.  Leon Levi is one of the comrades that have played a very important role in our struggle.
 I'm John Komama, the president of this federation.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr Komama.  Can I ask if all of you are going to be speaking?

MR SHILOWA: We don't know.  It depends on the questions, but primarily the people who are expected to speak is the president who'll make a few remarks, myself and Jay.
 We want Paul Benjamin to give some personal experience around what he saw in the mines, because I think the people here from the mines, they are here, and they have been lying through their teeth.  So I want him to give some personal experiences.
 Obviously depending on some issues which has mainly to deal with we may do that.  So, my suggestion is that you affirm all of us and that obviously even if all of us don't speak it will be fine.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr Selone.  Will you all then stand?  Dr Ally.

RUSSELL ALLY: I was tempted to ask whether the accusations you are going to make will be the truth, but the Chairman says I must not.

JOHN KOMAMA, JAY NAIDOO, SAM SELONE, TIFO, PAUL BENJAMIN, LEON LEVY: (Duly sworn in, states).

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Selone, can I first say that we are very thankful for the very lengthy submission that we've received from COSATU and it's enormous work that's gone into the submission, as we've had with all other groupings that have come in front of the Commission.
 We not only have the submission that you've given us to  - given us again this morning, but we have something like 18 annexures that you've added to the submission and we're very thankful.
 Some of those, of course, go to, I think it was Mr Godsell, who reminded us of the Leon Commission.  If I can just say that one of the submissions made at that commission was to do with migrant labour, the whole question of violence on the mines and there was a study conducted by the University of Witwatersrand from, under your hospice of course, on racism in the mines, which reflected again that these issues have not left us.
 I leave it to you as to how you're going to actually organise your submission.  Can you please begin.
COSATU:  PRESENTATION