Read this article in:
11 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 89/2001
South African miners will be on the march this afternoon - to demand medicines for the treatment of HIV/AIDS.
The marches show how HIV/AIDS has become a major industrial issue in South Africa, which has the world's highest known infection rates.
At 16.00 local time this afternoon, all members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in the seven Ingwe mines in the Highveld area of Mpumalanga will set off to present memorandums to their respective managements. Ingwe is owned by mining multinational Billiton.
The marchers' main demand is that the company should make HIV/AIDS drugs available to all mine employees.This is line with an agreement on the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, signed in August between the NUM and the employers' Chamber of Mines as part of this year's industry-wide bargaining round.
The need to tackle HIV/AIDS at the workplace level was emphasised by an international trade union conference held in South Africa this February by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). The conference particularly stressed employers' responsibility in the fight against the pandemic. The NUM, which is Africa's biggest union, is an ICEM affiliate.
So far, implementation of the Chamber's agreement with the NUM has been patchy.
On the positive side, earlier this month the Chamber of Mines agreed to the NUM's long-standing call for a national industry summit on HIV/AIDS.
Scheduled for the end of February 2002, the summit will look at:
- awareness and behavioural change
- wellness programmes and treatment
- the socio-economic impact of the disease on the industry and the country at large
- research into issues related to cure.
A joint NUM/employer team will prepare the summit and will try to develop a common industry perspective on these issues.
But some employers have been dragging their feet.
Mining giant Anglo American recently went back on a pledge to provide anti-retroviral drugs free of charge to all of its South African employees who wanted them. While certainly not a cure for AIDS, anti-retrovirals can reduce the risk of HIV infection and can improve the quality of life of HIV sufferers.
Now, it seems, Anglo will give preferential treatment to "senior employees" - apparently because the company thinks that providing these medicines throughout its workforce would be too expensive. An angry NUM called Anglo's change of heart "inherently racist and discriminatory."
AIDS is now thought to be South Africa's biggest killer. A recent report from the state-funded Medical Research Council says that, within the next ten years, AIDS will probably be responsible for twice the number of South African deaths due to all other causes put together. This means "5 million to 7 million cumulative AIDS deaths in South Africa by 2010."
Though disputed by the South African government, the report is widely regarded as authoritative. It estimates that 40 percent of deaths of South Africans between the ages of 15 and 49 are now AIDS-related.
So the worst-hit South Africans are those of working age. And miners are particularly at risk. Most of them are migrants who live in overcrowded company hostels, far away from their families. This February's ICEM conference on AIDS called for a rapid end to this "hostel culture."
This month, the Amalgamated Bank of South Africa (ABSA) forecast that the country's economically active population will be 23.5 percent smaller (almost 4 million people) by 2015 than would have been the case without AIDS. This could, ABSA says, have a serious impact on South Africa's balance of payments and on its currency.
The marches show how HIV/AIDS has become a major industrial issue in South Africa, which has the world's highest known infection rates.
At 16.00 local time this afternoon, all members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in the seven Ingwe mines in the Highveld area of Mpumalanga will set off to present memorandums to their respective managements. Ingwe is owned by mining multinational Billiton.
The marchers' main demand is that the company should make HIV/AIDS drugs available to all mine employees.This is line with an agreement on the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, signed in August between the NUM and the employers' Chamber of Mines as part of this year's industry-wide bargaining round.
The need to tackle HIV/AIDS at the workplace level was emphasised by an international trade union conference held in South Africa this February by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). The conference particularly stressed employers' responsibility in the fight against the pandemic. The NUM, which is Africa's biggest union, is an ICEM affiliate.
So far, implementation of the Chamber's agreement with the NUM has been patchy.
On the positive side, earlier this month the Chamber of Mines agreed to the NUM's long-standing call for a national industry summit on HIV/AIDS.
Scheduled for the end of February 2002, the summit will look at:
- awareness and behavioural change
- wellness programmes and treatment
- the socio-economic impact of the disease on the industry and the country at large
- research into issues related to cure.
A joint NUM/employer team will prepare the summit and will try to develop a common industry perspective on these issues.
But some employers have been dragging their feet.
Mining giant Anglo American recently went back on a pledge to provide anti-retroviral drugs free of charge to all of its South African employees who wanted them. While certainly not a cure for AIDS, anti-retrovirals can reduce the risk of HIV infection and can improve the quality of life of HIV sufferers.
Now, it seems, Anglo will give preferential treatment to "senior employees" - apparently because the company thinks that providing these medicines throughout its workforce would be too expensive. An angry NUM called Anglo's change of heart "inherently racist and discriminatory."
AIDS is now thought to be South Africa's biggest killer. A recent report from the state-funded Medical Research Council says that, within the next ten years, AIDS will probably be responsible for twice the number of South African deaths due to all other causes put together. This means "5 million to 7 million cumulative AIDS deaths in South Africa by 2010."
Though disputed by the South African government, the report is widely regarded as authoritative. It estimates that 40 percent of deaths of South Africans between the ages of 15 and 49 are now AIDS-related.
So the worst-hit South Africans are those of working age. And miners are particularly at risk. Most of them are migrants who live in overcrowded company hostels, far away from their families. This February's ICEM conference on AIDS called for a rapid end to this "hostel culture."
This month, the Amalgamated Bank of South Africa (ABSA) forecast that the country's economically active population will be 23.5 percent smaller (almost 4 million people) by 2015 than would have been the case without AIDS. This could, ABSA says, have a serious impact on South Africa's balance of payments and on its currency.