A company official says more than 100 miners have escaped from a gold mine in South Africa after being held underground for three days by fellow employees in a union dispute.
They are not slaves they are workers, just like myself working in a mine in South Africa, though I am in platinum. You have full rights to join any union you like in South Africa, it is constitutionally protected. What these guys are doing is an illegal strike, in terms of being violent and forcing others to join them against their will. AMCU has been a radical union, I worked during their 5 month legal strike back in 2014 in the platinum belt. Things were hectic, people were starving and crime really shot up.
Also in South Africa, if you work at a mine but did not join a union, you are automatically part of the largest union, we call it in loco. Nothing wrong with unions nor bargaining for better pay and working conditions, but there is wrong in violent unions that threatens over employees choosing not to participate or in this cases holding them hostage.
They are not slaves they are workers, just like myself working in a mine in South Africa, though I am in platinum. You have full rights to join any union you like in South Africa, it is constitutionally protected. What these guys are doing is an illegal strike, in terms of being violent and forcing others to join them against their will. AMCU has been a radical union, I worked during their 5 month legal strike back in 2014 in the platinum belt. Things were hectic, people were starving and crime really shot up.
Also in South Africa, if you work at a mine but did not join a union, you are automatically part of the largest union, we call it in loco. Nothing wrong with unions nor bargaining for better pay and working conditions, but there is wrong in violent unions that threatens over employees choosing not to participate or in this cases holding them hostage.
Scab