Striking miners talk about their struggle to stave off hunger

Striking workers at Sibanye-Stillwater Driefontein mine in Calrtonville have detailed their struggle to survive over the past eight weeks without pay due to a strike over wage increases.

They have been forced to eat one meal a day because that is all they can afford.

Zizamele Bhekilizwe, 55, of Ntabankulu in Eastern Cape, who joined the mine in 1985,  told Sowetan on Monday that he had been eating only pap and drinking water.

The workers’ plight took centre-stage on Sunday when President Cyril Ramaphosa was heckled and had to be whisked away during Cosatu’s Workers’ Day celebrations in Rustenburg, North West.

“We come here (the entrance of the mine) just to kill time. There is nothing else we can do,” he said.

Bhekilizwe is the father of five, with the oldest of his children being 33 and the youngest 23.

All his children are unemployed. This means from the R10,000 he earns, he also has to provide for his six grandchildren. To survive during the strike, Bhekilizwe has had to sell two cows and four goats at R9,000 and R800 each, respectively.

The money that came from the sales was used to ensure that his wife and children do not starve like him.

He said workers did not want R1,000 from the employers but R1,500. They simply had agreed to R1,000 because the employer said they could not afford the R1,500 increase.

Bhelikizwe said despite the R1,000 not being a lot of money, it would still help him take care of his family. “At least with that money I can try to buy back all the livestock that I have had to sell. After that, I will still have to send my grandchildren to school,” Bhekilizwe said.

He is one of the many workers at the Sibanye Steelwater gold mine who have been on strike demanding R1,000 increase. The employers offered R800, which the workers declined.

Zulu Kerr, 53, has 10 children, the eldest being 35 and the youngest 17, back in KwaBhaca in the Eastern Cape. Two of his children are still dependent on him.

Over the past five years Kerr had saved about R70,000, which he was planning to use to build an eight-room house for his family.

This is the home that he planned to retire and live in. He had already finished the foundation and the walls are knee-high.

“My plan has fallen apart now. It is dead. I have to use the money that I had saved to build a home for my two children who are at university.

“My dream was to ensure that by the time I retire, which is about three to four years, I have a place where I can rest back home. Everything is stuck. It is the most painful thing a man can face.

“If we get the R1,000, it will ease the pressure I have from the loans I have taken just to keep my children at university,” Kerr said.

Kerr joined Sibanye-Stillwater in 2005.

Siyakudumisa Matwa, 49, also of KwaBhaca, is his family's breadwinner, taking care of his four children and five grandchildren. Among his grandchildren is a two-year-old who still needs disposable nappies every month.

“That is one of my worries. My wife now goes around the neighbourhood asking for food and money because I cannot provide for her as a man. It is painful,” Matwa said.

On Friday, Matwa received a call that his uncle has been shot in Cape Town in the Western Cape but he cannot do anything about it.

“I don’t have something I can bring to the family in a time of mourning,” Matwa said.

“We work in very dangerous circumstances, making money for people who clearly do not care about their employees,” he said.

Matwa said he could use the R1,000 if the unions got their way to laybuy material, which he will use to extend his home​