South Africa Layoffs Lead to Riots, Deaths

Depending on where you live, and the severity of the situation for your company you may expect a lot of things to happen when layoffs come to town. You could expect a few people to go, or a mass exodus. You might even expect your greedy CEO to make off with a bonus while you have to make do with whatever the unemployment office has to offer you. No matter what you expected from your layoffs a death was probably not one of them and the odds are that for the unfortunate worker at a Johannesburg platinum mine he did not expect recent layoffs to result in his own death.

That is exactly what police think happened. One miner at the facility, who still had his job, was found dead near the mine on Thursday morning. For those of you not familiar with South African geography the mine is in Rustenburg, which is about 60 miles from the city of Johannesburg.  Johannesburg is actually the provincial capitol of the wealthiest province in the nation of South Africa and despite the popular mis-conception Johannesburg is not one of the three capitol cities in South Africa.

Right now local police believe that the man was killed for trying to go to work.  The mine was currently be protested by thousands of recently laid off miners. These miners were let go after the courts decided that their strike was illegal. The miners were striking for higher pay. While this is not the first bit of violence to come out of these layoffs it is the first life to be taken. According to local police reports the victim was stabbed, beaten and stripped of all of his clothes. Other damage from the looting, in the form of violence and theft, has resulted in the arrest of more than 100 protesting miners. Two police officers were injured in the rioting as well.

In order to prevent future violence and deaths the police have asked the management of the mine to work with the union and resolve the conflict as soon as they can. More violence is expected in the coming days if no agreement can be reached, and the police are preparing for the eventuality.

South Africa is, of course, not the only company to experience citizens having a very strong reaction to layoffs. For those of you who missed our earlier coverage about the response of citizens in Greece here is an excerpt :

“Those cuts, which are leading to layoffs, are also leading to some really serious consequences for the people out there. The relatively massive job cutbacks that came as part of the European bailout deal has left the company with no choice but to let go of a serious amount of working. According to the reports the government will be forced to shut down departments will be shut down completely and a high number of workers, up to 15,000 according to estimates. These reports have worker protesting, and some people have even tried to commit acts of self-harm.”