The hostage situation at gold miner Gold One has ended after all 543 mineworkers trapped underground by their colleagues resurfaced on Wednesday, three days after the ordeal spurred by a dispute over union recognition began.
“They are all back. We are still ascertaining the reasons [they decided to resurface]. We are going to need a bit of time to interview some of the people who were underground to get to the bottom of what triggered the ending of this situation, which resulted in getting everyone out,” said Gold One head of legal Ziyaad Hassam.
He told Business Day that the last group emerged from Gold One’s Modder East shaft in Springs, east of Johannesburg, just after 2pm on Wednesday. Asked what action would be taken against the instigators, Hassam said: “The priority all along was to get people out of underground. We will now focus our attention on how we deal with the instigators and labour relations, going forward.”
The crisis, which has been described by the SA Police Service (SAPS) as a hostage situation, is the latest episode in SA’s troubled mining sector, which has been plagued by labour unrest, violence and low productivity.
It was triggered after Gold One management apparently refused to recognise the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) as a majority union at the mine. Amcu claims to represent almost all of the nearly 2,000 mineworkers at Gold One, which counts the China Development Fund as an investor.
Gold One management has a closed-shop agreement with the rival National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which effectively means that workers at the gold miner must be NUM members.
The mine management and Amcu held a marathon meeting on Tuesday to try to resolve the dispute.
“We are definitely happy about this development, that all the workers are out. We didn’t wish our members to be subjected to such hardship. We will be addressing our members and we will take it from there, and look at how we deal with the situation we have with management as well,” said Jeff Mphahlele, general secretary of Amcu.
NUM spokesperson Livhuwani Mammburu said: “We are happy that all workers who had been held hostage are back on the surface. The whole situation has been resolved amicably. As NUM we are very happy the whole situation has come to an end. However, we want the police to arrest those who were responsible for this hostage situation. It endangered the lives of those who were held against their will.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Business Day had reported that a group of mineworkers had returned to the surface after fighting and overpowering their “armed” captors, who held them hostage underground for more than 48 hours.
SAPS spokesperson Brig Brenda Muridili had earlier said: “The SAPS can confirm that the situation in Gold One mine is being treated as a hostage situation. The provincial commissioner of the police in Gauteng, Lt-Gen Elias Mawela had an engagement with the management of the Gold One mine on October 24. A joint operational centre (JOC) has since been established to co-ordinate activities of operational departments.
“The JOC comprises members from public order policing, tactical response unit, visible policing, detectives, SAPS hostage negotiators, crime intelligence, EMPD [the Ekurhuleni metro police] as well as mine security personnel, among other stakeholders.”
Mphahlele said the mine management has not been helpful in trying to resolve the impasse during their meeting on Tuesday, at which Amcu demanded to be recognised as a majority union at the company.
“The management stuck to their position; they were not taking any of the proposals we were making. But through God’s grace we managed to persuade our members to get out [from underground] and they listened to our request as national [leadership]. Everybody should be out by now,” Mphahlele said.
He took issue at management’s refusal to recognise Amcu, saying the company is “hiding behind the closed-shop agreement” it has with NUM, which effectively means that workers at Gold One must be NUM members.
“This closed-shop agreement was signed in 2012. In terms of the LRA [Labour Relations Act], this agreement must be reviewed every three years. That said, we will continue engaging with management with a view to reaching an amicable solution to this [crisis].”
Update: October 25 2023:
This article has been updated to reflect that the hostage situation at Gold One has come to an end.
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