Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-13

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Ally?

RUSSELL ALLY: Thanks very much, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Russel, before you start.  Can I just ask people at the back, there are some more seats in the front here if you want to come and sit down.  A few seats.
 Russel?

RUSSELL ALLY: I don't think anyone familiar with South Africa's history is unaware of the centrality of the Mining Industry to the way in which this country developed and you pointed out in your submission as one of our most celebrated historians, you know, said that from 1886 the story of South Africa is a story of gold.
 The mining industry was obviously pivotal in that regard and the Chamber and I relied that you are speaking as a chamber and therefore you're not going to be able to necessarily speak on behalf of all your members.
 But you also emphasized the other side of the mining industry;  that not only, because of the generator of wealth, but also the consequences of that and the legacy that that has left in our country's history - the deep wounds, scars and poverty and impoverishment in some areas.
 So I suppose the first question that I really want to ask is;  the system which where you acknowledge some of its more unsavoury, sometimes brutal features, was this because it was inherent in the nature of mining or was this because it was Blacks who were the workers who were digging the gold up from underneath the (indistinct) of the country?

MR GODSELL: Just to clarify.  When you speak of the system you are speaking particularly of migratory labour or ... (intervention).

RUSSELL ALLY: I'm speaking about the whole Mining Industry itself, the cheap labour, the experiences of early migrant labourers, the conditions that you yourself spoke about in hostels in those early years, the accidents and safety and those sort of issues.
 The experiences;  was this because it was inherent in the nature of that industry that often it is openly admitted that mining is a dangerous business and that accidents are almost an occupational hazard, if you'll excuse me using that phrase in this context, but was this because of the nature of the industry itself, or was this because the main labourer's service in this industry were Black?

MR GODSELL: Okay then.  I certainly would offer this perspective.  I think fundamentally it has come from the racial laws, which as Adrian has said, way predate 1960 and they way predate the Apartheid system and they go back for example to the Glenray Act, to the pattern of conquest, to the pattern of colonialism.
 This created a situation where for many Black Southern Africans the only opportunity of cash employment and a need for cash employment had been imposed essentially by the pattern of conquest and of land occupation.  
 So this created a group of people that only had one option, which was employment in the mining industry.  We turn to another thing and Adrian's referred to the 1922 rand rebellion.  This was an argument about the division of skills and the maintenance of a skill monopoly amongst White workers.  A strange alliance between Afrikaners Nationalists and European, particularly British socialists to create a preserve of skill, that led to a fundamental chasm between the lowest skilled worker who was White and that was written into the laws of the new pact Government in 1926 and the rest of the work force which was Black.
 So, I think it's not inherent in the nature of our mining.  If we come to safety, clearly, mining is a hazardous occupation.  Clearly deep level mining in hard rock formations in high seismic active areas, is hazardous.
 I'm hugely convinced that we can dramatically improve the safety improvement - the safety performance of this industry when we have a rational distribution of decision making and responsibility.  When, for example, Black workers believe they can indeed take charge of their own safety and the safety of their colleagues, because they're able to participate in deciding on safety standards, on safety regulations, on when it's safe to mine and when not - when it's not safe to mine.
 So I think overwhelmingly, this is a feature of the racial politics that this industry has experienced from its birth.

BOBBY GODSELL NICK SEGAL ADRIAN DU PLESSIS: Could I just add to that, please, Chairman.  I think Bobby explained very well the history of the supply of labour, but there is also the demand for labour and there was some crucial decisions taken in the 1890's about, in the case of gold which is obviously the major employer and historically was the employer of that period even far more than diamonds and growing much faster, the decision was taken to follow the gold that had been found on the surface, what we call (indistinct) and the deposits were huge and they went down at steep angles.
 The technologies available at that time was such that there was a demand for lots and lots of manual labour and that's really what offered those opportunities for Black people coming from rural areas at that time.
 Now, that again is a uniquely South African situation.  There are not other mines in hard rocks going to the depths that we now do and certainly not at those times, elsewhere in the world.

RUSSELL ALLY: Thanks for that.  I think that that was important to contextualise it in that way that it's not inherent, necessarily, but it's to do with the history and therefore developed then further.
 Would it be unfair then to say that given that racial history, that the Chamber when it established and very early on the life and development of the Mining Industry in the nineteenth century soon after the discovery of gold in 1886, actually maximised and took advantage and exploited that racial history and that the accusations that are often made and that the Mining Industry was the crucible in which many of the features which later came to characterise, which became a racist, a segregationist and later an Apartheid society can be laid at the door of the Mining Industry and the Chamber of Mines and particular in terms of how exploited and called for legislations (indistinct) against the back drop of that racial history.
 I would refer to things like the question of migration, of forcing people out with certain taxes which were imposed the then grey legislation which one of the leading pioneers of the Mining Industry, Cecil John Rhodes himself, was responsible for in his capacity not only has a mining or land lord, but as the Prime Minister of the Cape at the time.
 So, would it be fair to attribute a large responsibility to the Mining Industry for the way in which the country subsequently developed?