De Beers sends workers' wives to
jail
>
November 24, 1995 - Retyped from Weekly
Mail and Guardian - with thanks.
THE National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on
Wednesday said it would appeal against prison sentences imposed on
three miners' wives for trespassing at a De Beers diamond company
mine. The women are serving their sentences at a prison in the
Northern Cape town of Springbok. Two children, aged eight months and
four years, were staying with their mothers at the prison, according
to a warder.
The women, from Sterkspruit in the Eastern
Cape, are demanding the right to live with their husbands, but have
failed to reach an agreement with the company.
De Beers' actions were draconian, racist
and discriminatory, said NUM's Namaqualand co-ordinator Fred Wyngard.
He said the company was refusing to let the wives of black
mineworkers stay in several empty houses at Kleinzee mine near
Springbok. Eastern Cape women were no longer prepared to tolerate the
old apartheid ways, he said.
White and coloured employees were allowed
to live with their families, but black employees continued to live in
single-sex hostels and saw their families for about three weeks every
year. De Beers said in a statement management had tried without
success to hold constructive talks with the NUM about the occupation
of houses reserved for family members wishing to visit employees from
the Eastern Cape.
Spokesman Tom Tweedy said the mine had
refrained from taking legal action against the occupants, even though
their action effectively deprived the families of other employees of
the use of the accommodation. At the last round of talks involving
management, the NUM and the provincial government on October 27, the
government had said it would make suitable land available so that De
Beers employees could take advantage of its house ownership scheme.
The NUM had not responded to this offer, Tweedy said, and its head
office was approached on November 6 with a view to holding a meeting
with its Namaqualand branch to address the matter Tweedy said Num was
advised the three women had forcibly gained entry to the company's
premises and would face court action. "NUM has not yet responded to
this urgent request," Tweedy said on Wednesday. He said one woman had
arrived at the entrance to the Namaqualand mine and requested entry.
This was refused as there was no accommodation available.
Twenty-six women were already occupying 16
accommodation units. The woman then forcibly entered the company's
premises and was charged with trespassing. She was given a 35-day
suspended sentence and a warning not to enter the premises without
mine consent.
In spite of this, she and two other women
forcibly entered the premises again, Tweedy said. All were sentenced
to 35 days prison. The company had offered to allocate more
accommodation for visitors, provided it was used for that specific
purpose and not occupied permanently "by a minority of the wives of
employees". Tweedy said the union, NUM, had failed to act responsibly
in the matter.
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