{"id":13665,"date":"2012-08-19T14:59:32","date_gmt":"2012-08-19T12:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/08\/insight-workers-to-warriors-union-war-batters-s-africa-mines\/"},"modified":"2012-08-19T14:59:32","modified_gmt":"2012-08-19T12:59:32","slug":"insight-workers-to-warriors-union-war-batters-s-africa-mines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/insight-workers-to-warriors-union-war-batters-s-africa-mines\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIGHT-Workers to warriors: union war batters S.Africa mines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Turf war for members was backdrop to Lonmin mine killings<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Worker demands show popular anger over poverty, services<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Platinum sector struggles with soaring costs, weak demand<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Fears violence and unrest could spread to other mines<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Ed Stoddard<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>LYDENBURG, South Africa, Aug 19 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s<br \/>\nplatinum promise of prosperity has turned into a heap of broken<br \/>\ndreams for Vusimuzi Mathosi, one of 2,000 workers laid off by<br \/>\nAquarius Platinum at its Everest Mine.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This place can only be sustained with platinum. What can we<br \/>\ndo now?,&#8221; he told Reuters near the one-room box he and his<br \/>\nfamily call home in a dilapidated township on the outskirts of<br \/>\nLydenburg, 300 km (180 miles) east of Johannesburg.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>He belongs to the Association of Mineworkers and<br \/>\nConstruction Union (AMCU), whose b loody turf war for members<br \/>\nwith the dominant National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was the<br \/>\nbackdrop to Thursday&#8217;s killing of 34 striking platinum miners by<br \/>\npolice at the Marikana mine.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>When Aquarius, the world&#8217;s 4th largest producer of the<br \/>\nprecious metal, closed production at Everest, it cited worsening<br \/>\nindustrial relations stemming from the AMCU\/NUM battle which has<br \/>\nturned workers into warriors across the platinum sector.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Turf war for members was backdrop to Lonmin mine killings * Worker demands show popular anger over poverty, services * Platinum sector struggles with soaring costs, weak demand * Fears violence and unrest could spread to other mines By Ed Stoddard LYDENBURG, South Africa, Aug 19 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s platinum promise of prosperity [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-13665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}