| Wed 9 Mar 2005, 12:20 | | A slap in the face for women |
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A slap in the face for women
Priscilla Majola`s job is to move a ton of rocks for R30 with her bare hands. DRD Gold pays her only about R300 for a month`s work - and she has to spend R240 of that on transport
March 9, 2005
By Alameen Templeton
Yesterday was International Women`s Day, and Priscilla Majola, a single mother-of-three, was sorting and lugging - by hand - huge chunks of granite at a Carletonville mine for R30 a ton.
That is how much the management of Blyvooruitzicht gold mine, owned by Durban Roodepoort Deep Gold (DRD Gold), believes the sweat of a woman`s brow is worth.
Majola, who is 37, just shrugged when told that yesterday was International Women`s Day. The celebrations around the world mean nothing to a woman labouring under the blazing sun, her face covered with a thick film of dust that fills the air at the slightest breath of wind.
She has no protection from the elements. The dust fills her nostrils, cakes her eyebrows and hangs from her eyelashes, bestowing a deathly pallor on her hair.
Asked what she most wanted, Majola said simply: `Water.`
Her pay book shows that she took home R324,29 last month. After deducting the R240 she paid in taxi fares, as well as other modest expenses, she had less than R70 to support her children.
The pay slip means she moved just more than 10 tons of rock with her bare hands last month.
Majola has to pay for her own overalls, gumboots, gloves and face mask. While she daily faces the risk of injury on the job, she has no medical aid and is not covered for worker`s compensation if she is permanently disabled while working.
Deon Boqwana, regional chairperson of the National Union of Mineworkers, branded this the worst case of exploitation of workers in the industry, and a slap in the face for women`s rights.
He said he believed the mine was missing out on what could be a golden opportunity for empowerment.
Boqwana said the project could easily be handed over to the women to own and manage themselves. It is easy to spot the ore-bearing rock, and the project could become self-sustaining with minimum costs, he said.
Majola is just one of 300 women scrabbling about the stone dumps in the backyard of DRD Gold`s Blyvooruitzicht mine, about 70km south of Johannesburg.
They are trying to find the few pieces of gold-bearing rock - each about the size of a human head - that remain in the huge dump. The rock was dumped in the veld in the 1950s after most of the gold had been extracted, and this project seeks out the leftovers.
The only way to do it is by hand.
Instead of fulfilling its commitments under the Mining Charter - which commits signatories to increase female representation to 10% of their workforce - DRD Gold had turned opportunity into misery, Boqwana said.
It is back-breaking, thirsty work. There are no taps and no toilets.
Like the other women there, Majola has to bring her water with her when she climbs into a minibus taxi at the start of each day.
She treasures her 5 litres and has to ration herself as the day progresses, because the dust and the stifling heat are past masters at sucking moisture from a body.
A lone tree is the only shelter from the elements. Even during their periods, the women are forced to use the open veld.
They say it is a cause of great humiliation for them, but they return to the dumps five days a week - some of them seven - because they are paid on a commission basis. If they don`t work, they don`t get paid.
Some of them showed pay slips from last month reflecting a pay packet of R0,00.
They are beginners, as yet unaccustomed to the conditions. If they can`t shift at least a ton of rock, they get nothing.
Derisive laughter filled the air when The Star news team wished them a happy Women`s Day.
The women said they knew what they wanted: minimum pay, toilet and water facilities, for their young supervisor to stop calling them `black bitch`, medical aid, pension and - maybe one day - a real job on the mine.
The spokesperson for DRD Gold, James Duncan, admitted that the women earned R30 for every ton of rock they worked, but said this was `an employment-creation and gold-extraction project`.
He said the lack of toilet facilities and drinking water was being addressed `as a priority`.
`Claims by workers of verbal abuse by supervisors are viewed in a very serious light and will be investigated,` he said.
alameen@star.co.za
