The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) is outraged by the continuing loss of mineworkers’ lives at Harmony Gold. According to information now in the public domain, 46 mineworkers have died at Harmony operations over the past five years, including eight workers already in 2026.
These are not statistics to be buried in sustainability reports. These are human beings who went underground to earn a living and never returned to their families.
FORTY-SIX WORKERS MEANS FORTY-SIX DEVASTATED FAMILIES
South Africa must understand what the death of a mineworker means. A Black working-class breadwinner frequently supports an extended family, children, parents, grandparents, unemployed siblings and relatives, often stretching back to the impoverished rural labour-sending areas from which the mining industry historically recruited its workforce.
Kill one breadwinner and you can impoverish ten or even fifteen people overnight.
This happens against the background of a catastrophic unemployment crisis. SAFTU rejects attempts to conceal this crisis behind the narrow official unemployment definition. In the second quarter of 2026, expanded unemployment stood at 43.8%, while the broader labour-underutilisation measure stood at 46.3%. Black African women confront an even more devastating unemployment crisis.
When a breadwinner dies underground, there is therefore often no second income and no realistic prospect that another family member will simply find employment.
One death can mean children dropping out of education, families losing homes, greater indebtedness, hunger and an entire extended household being pushed deeper into poverty.
GOLD CAN WAIT UNDERGROUND A HUMAN BEING CANNOT BE RESURRECTED
SAFTU recognises that Harmony operates some of the deepest mines in the world and that seismicity poses genuine dangers. But danger cannot become an excuse for death. If a workplace cannot be made safe, workers must be withdrawn until it is safe. Gold can wait underground. A human being cannot be resurrected.
We reject the normalisation of mine fatalities as an unavoidable cost of extracting South Africa’s mineral wealth.
This country has sacrificed Black mineworkers for profits for more than a century. From migrant labour, compounds and occupational diseases to today’s fatalities underground, the mining industry has accumulated enormous wealth while workers and mining communities have carried the human cost.
That history must end.
RECORD PROFITS AND RECORD DIVIDENDS MAKE THESE DEATHS EVEN MORE UNACCEPTABLE
The contrast between the deaths underground and the wealth generated above ground is obscene.
Harmony reported approximately R99.2 billion in revenue, R27.2 billion in headline earnings, R17.1 billion in adjusted free cash flow and record dividends of R8.15 billion for the 2026 financial year.
We cannot celebrate record dividends while workers are being carried out of mines in body bags.
If billions of rand are available for shareholders, then every reasonably available resource must be deployed towards engineering, technology, maintenance, staffing and safety systems capable of protecting workers.
No company should ever be allowed to argue that protecting workers is too expensive while simultaneously announcing billions in profits and dividends.
ONE WORKER HAS DIED ROUGHLY EVERY MONTH THIS YEAR
The scale of the crisis must not be understated.
Eight Harmony workers have died by mid-September 2026. That amounts to approximately one worker every month this year. Forty-six deaths over five years amount to roughly one death every six and a half weeks.
How many funerals must working-class families attend before this becomes a national emergency?
We have developed an unacceptable ritual in mining.
A worker dies. Condolences are issued. An investigation is announced. Management promises that lessons will be learned. Production resumes.
Then another worker dies.
This cycle must be broken.
DIRECTORS AND MANAGERS MUST FACE PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY
SAFTU supports much stronger personal accountability where investigations establish negligence, recklessness, deliberate safety violations or management decisions that placed production ahead of workers’ lives.
A company is an artificial legal person.
You cannot imprison a company.
If the consequence of negligence is merely another corporate fine, that fine can simply become another cost of doing business.
Those responsible for decisions concerning production targets, staffing, maintenance and safety must know that where their unlawful or reckless decisions cause death, they can face personal consequences under the law.
We therefore support strengthening the law so that directors and senior managers can be held personally accountable wherever evidence establishes their responsibility for preventable workplace deaths.
The life of a worker cannot be cheaper than the cost of stopping production.
WHEN A WORKER DIES, WORKERS MUST BE ALLOWED TO MOURN
SAFTU further supports a fundamental change in what happens following a workplace fatality.
When a mineworker dies, workers at that operation must be granted paid time to mourn their fallen comrade and participate in a proper safety review before normal production resumes. There must be an economic consequence when a workplace kills somebody.
If production simply resumes as quickly as possible after a death, the system creates precisely the wrong incentive.
Stopping production makes unsafe practices expensive.
Companies must understand that taking shortcuts, neglecting maintenance or gambling with workers’ lives will cost considerably more than investing in prevention.
Workers must equally be empowered to exercise their legal right to refuse dangerous work without intimidation, victimisation or fear of dismissal.
THE REGULATOR MUST ACCOUNT
SAFTU demands much greater transparency and tougher enforcement from the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources.
The Department must tell workers and the country what its investigations into these fatalities have established.
What recurring causes have been identified?
What directives have been issued?
How many safety stoppages have been imposed?
What prosecutions or other enforcement measures have followed?
And, most importantly, what has materially changed underground to prevent another worker from dying?
The purpose of mine-safety regulation cannot simply be to explain why workers died.
Its first responsibility must be to prevent workers from dying.
PIC AND ARM CANNOT COLLECT DIVIDENDS AND LOOK THE OTHER WAY
Major shareholders also carry responsibilities.
The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) and African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) are major shareholders in Harmony Gold. With substantial economic influence must come substantial responsibility.
The PIC manages the retirement savings of public-sector workers. Workers’ pension money cannot become passive capital demanding returns from the labour of other workers while remaining silent when those workers die.
Where is the shareholder activism?
Where are the demands for emergency safety interventions?
Where are the demands that executive remuneration and bonuses be affected when workers die?
Where is the insistence on accelerated investment in technology capable of removing workers from the most dangerous areas?
The same questions must be answered by ARM and every other major institutional shareholder.
Shareholders cannot be interested only in dividends, profits and share prices. They must account for the conditions under which those returns are produced.
OUR MORALITY CANNOT DEPEND ON GEOGRAPHY
SAFTU is equally concerned about corporate investments, supply chains and commercial relationships connected with Israel at a time when Palestinians in Gaza have endured catastrophic death and destruction.
We support demands for transparency from South African corporations and institutional investors regarding their investments and commercial relationships connected to Israel, and for an end to relationships shown to contribute to unlawful occupation, settlement activity or violations of international humanitarian law.
Our morality cannot change according to geography.
A Palestinian child’s life cannot become collateral damage in the pursuit of profit, just as a Black mineworker’s life cannot become collateral damage in the production of gold.
Human life must come before profit, whether in Gaza or kilometres underground in a South African gold mine.
SAFTU DEMANDS ZERO FATALITIES
Forty-six workers in five years are forty-six workers too many.
SAFTU demands:
- Zero fatalities must become the non-negotiable objective of every mining operation.
- Every fatality must trigger a thorough, transparent and independent investigation.
- Workers must receive paid mourning and safety-review time following a fatality before normal production resumes.
- Where negligence, recklessness or unlawful conduct is established, directors and senior managers responsible must face personal legal consequences.
- Executive remuneration and bonuses must carry meaningful consequences where preventable fatalities occur.
- Workers’ right to refuse dangerous work must be protected absolutely against intimidation and victimisation.
- Harmony must dramatically accelerate investment in engineering and technologies that remove workers from the most dangerous areas.
- The Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources must publicly account for the findings and enforcement outcomes arising from fatalities at Harmony operations.
- The PIC, ARM and other major institutional shareholders must use their shareholder power aggressively to demand measurable improvements in worker safety.
- Institutional investors must disclose and review investments and commercial relationships that may contribute to grave violations of human rights and international law.
Mineworkers are not disposable inputs into the production of gold.
They are human beings. They are mothers and fathers. They are sons and daughters. They are breadwinners. Their labour creates the wealth that executives and shareholders enjoy.
Every worker who goes underground has an absolute right to return home alive.
Gold can wait. Profits can wait. Dividends can wait. Human life cannot.
A statement was issued on behalf of SAFTU by the General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi.
For media inquiries, contact the National Spokesperson at
Newton Masuku
newtonm@saftu.org.za
0661682157
Media Officer
Asive Dyani
0719019564
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