About 600 activists from the Treatment Action Campaign and Sonke Gender Justice, together with members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and members of civil society participated in a “Justice for Miners” march, earlier today.
The march started from Joburg’s Newtown area and then passed through Marshalltown, past the head offices of mining companies such as Anglo-American and Anglo-Gold Ashanti as well as the Chamber of Mines before it ended outside the South Gauteng High Court where the certification hearing for the class action silicosis lawsuit is being heard.
The symbolic march past the mining companies head offices was to show concern about the lives that are being destroyed by occupational silicosis and tuberculosis, to demonstrate anger at the uncaring attitudes of South Africa’s mining giants and to call on mining companies to take better care and responsibility for their workers.
[Text and pictures by Khopotso Bodibe]
