Following the September 2012 Marikana massacre of protesting mineworkers, a chequered “pattern” of re-hiring and firing is emerging in South Africa’s gold and platinum fields. A few mine managers have taken back workers they previously sacked, but others are refusing to re-employ them.
Last week, police fired rubber bullets at strikers objecting to a pay deal which was brokered by the official National Union of Mineworkers at one of Anglo American’s platinum mines.
In a detailed analysis, published just a week earlier, a well-known South African political and social commentator advised against equating post-Marikana developments with those which followed previous similar events in the country’s history.
See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=11981.