{"id":13736,"date":"2012-08-22T03:04:32","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T01:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/08\/militant-s-africa-union-marches-with-bible-witchcraft\/"},"modified":"2012-08-22T03:04:32","modified_gmt":"2012-08-22T01:04:32","slug":"militant-s-africa-union-marches-with-bible-witchcraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/militant-s-africa-union-marches-with-bible-witchcraft\/","title":{"rendered":"Militant S. Africa union marches with Bible, witchcraft"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

* AMCU is at the heart of debate on violent labour relations<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

* Breakaway union takes aim at “elitist” ANC-allied NUM<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

* AMCU leaders profess religion, reject violence charges<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

By Ed Stoddard and Sherilee Lakmidas<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

RUSTENBURG, South Africa, Aug 21 (Reuters) – Its leaders
\ncall themselves devout Christians and say life is sacred. But
\nits supporters march with spears, machetes and clubs and anoint
\nthemselves with magic potions to ward off police bullets.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

By taking on South Africa’s powerful mining houses and the
\npolitically-connected NUM mineworkers’ union, breakaway union
\nAMCU has put itself at the heart of national soul-searching
\nafter Thursday’s police shooting of 34 striking platinum miners
\nat a mine northwest of Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the start of this year, the AMCU (Association of
\nMineworkers and Construction Union) has been muscling in to grab
\nmembers from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in a bitter
\nturf war that has triggered violence at several mines and shaken
\nthe industry.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

While critics, which include mine executives and the NUM,
\naccuse it of using strong-arm tactics to recruit members and
\npress labour claims with illegal strikes, AMCU’s leaders wage
\ntheir campaign in the name of Jesus Christ and racial justice in
\none of the most unequal societies in the world.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“Our Constitution favours whites … We are strangers in our
\nland,” reads a sign at the AMCU office at an Impala Platinum
\n mine near Rustenburg, west of Johannesburg. An AMCU
\nrecruitment offensive led to violence this year at the world’s
\nlargest platinum mine, which is run by Implats.
\n\u00a0 Continued…<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

* AMCU is at the heart of debate on violent labour relations * Breakaway union takes aim at “elitist” ANC-allied NUM * AMCU leaders profess religion, reject violence charges By Ed Stoddard and Sherilee Lakmidas RUSTENBURG, South Africa, Aug 21 (Reuters) – Its leaders call themselves devout Christians and say life is sacred. But its […]<\/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-13736","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\/13736","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=13736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}