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James Motlatsi
James Motlatsi (born 5 June 1951) is a Mosotho mining executive and former trade union leader, who has been active in South Africa. Born in Mohale's Hoek in Lesotho, Motlatsi became a labourer at the Welkom gold mine in 1970. He was gradually promoted, becoming a driller, then a team leader, and eventually working as a personnel assistant. In 1981, the Council of Unions of South Africa resolved to establish a mining union, and Motlatsi met Cyril Ramaphosa, who was its main organiser. Motlatsi was enthusiastic, and immediately began recruiting members at the mine. When the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was officially founded, in 1982, he was elected as its first president. The NUM grew rapidly, to become the largest union in South Africa, and moved to affiliate to the Congress of South African Trade Unions. He was fired from his mining job during a 1987 strike, and thereafter worked full-time for the union. In 1990, he and Ramaphosa were both arrested for leading a marc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely enclaves the country Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania. South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot, with unique biomes, plant and animal life. With over 60 million people, the country is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of . South Africa has three capital cities, with the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government based in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town respectively. The largest city is Johannesburg. About 80% of the population are Black South Afri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mohale's Hoek
Mohale's Hoek is the capital city of Mohale's Hoek District in Lesotho. It had a population of approximately 40,040 in 2016.Lesotho Bureau of StatisticsCensus Pre Results2006. History Mohale's Hoek had first been inhabited by the San who were found there by the Baphuthi around 1795. The Baphuthi settled in Kubake, the small mountain fortress shaped like a castle, near the present Likuena High School while some settled at Thaba-Ts'oeu. Chief Moorosi of the Baphuthi is said to have been there during the journey to this new home. They later settled below the foothills of Thaba-Linoha, north of the present Bethesda mission and the area was later called Maphutseng, which simply means the plural of a certain variety of a pumpkin. In singular it is Lephuts'e. This was found in plenty on the fertile bank of Maphuts'eng River. Some Baphuthi inhabited the area bordering Senqu River, Morifi and across the river into what is now Quthing. After 1824, the area was inhabited by Mohale, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Welkom
Welkom () is the second-largest city in the Free State province of South Africa, located about northeast of Bloemfontein which is the provincial capital. Welkom is also known as Circle City, City Within A Garden, Mvela and Matjhabeng. The city's Sesotho name, ''Matjhabeng'' means 'where nations meet', derived from the migrant labour system, where people of various countries such as Lesotho, Malawi and Mozambique etc. met to work in the mines of the gold fields. A settlement was laid out on a farm named "Welkom" (which is the Afrikaans and Dutch word for "welcome") after gold was discovered in the region, and it was officially proclaimed a town in 1948. The town became a municipality in 1961. It now falls in the Matjhabeng Municipality, part of the Lejweleputswa District. Welkom was officially declared a city on 14 February 1968. History Much of the history of Welkom is centred around the discovery of gold in the northwestern Free State. It was proclaimed a town in 1948, ni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Council Of Unions Of South Africa
The Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA) was a national trade union federation in South Africa. History The federation was founded on 14 September 1980 by the former affiliates of the Black Consultative Committee which did not wish to join the Federation of South African Trade Unions, as they felt it was dominated by white activists. The new federation was more centralised than the former committee, and it was led by general secretary Phiroshaw Camay. The federation strongly opposed the apartheid system, and affiliated to both the National Forum Committee and the United Democratic Front. The council had seven affiliates, and saw initial growth, with 49,014 members by the end of 1981. In 1982, it sought to organise mine workers, and so established the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). All the CUSA affiliates grew, with the NUM's growth being particularly rapid. In contrast to many of its rivals, CUSA did not lay out any specific approach for affiliates to use in negot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyril Ramaphosa
Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa (born 17 November 1952) is a South African businessman and politician who is currently serving as the fifth democratically elected president of South Africa. Formerly an anti-apartheid activist, trade union leader, and businessman, Ramaphosa is also the president of the African National Congress (ANC). Ramaphosa rose to national prominence as secretary general of South Africa's biggest and most powerful trade union, the National Union of Mineworkers. In 1991, he was elected ANC secretary general under ANC president Nelson Mandela and became the ANC's chief negotiator during the negotiations that ended apartheid. He was elected chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly after the country's first fully democratic elections in 1994 and some observers believed that he was Mandela's preferred successor. However, Ramaphosa resigned from politics in 1996 and became well known as a businessman, including as an owner of McDonald's South Africa, chair of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Union Of Mineworkers (South Africa)
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is a mainly mining industry related trade union, an organisation of workers with common goals through organised labour, in South Africa. With a membership of 300,000 , it is the largest affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). History The union was founded in 1982 as a black mine workers union, on the initiative of the Council of Unions of South Africa. Its first leader was Cyril Ramaphosa, under whom it grew rapidly, winning bargaining recognition from the Chamber of Mines in 1983. NUM campaigned successfully in the 1980s for the end of the job reservation system, a system which ensured that the best-paid jobs were allocated to whites. The union was a founding affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions in 1985. In 2001, it absorbed the Construction and Allied Workers' Union, while in 2019 it was announced that it would soon absorb the Liberated Metalworkers' Union of South Africa. NUM was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Congress Of South African Trade Unions
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is a trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ... federation in South Africa. It was founded in 1985 and is the largest of the country's three main trade union federations, with 21 affiliated trade unions.One Union expelled, and seven Unions voluntarily suspended their participation in COSATU History On 30 Nov 1985, 33 unions met at the University of Natal for talks on forming a federation of trade unions. This followed four years of unity talks between competing unions and federations that were opposed to apartheid and were "committed to a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa." COSATU was officially established on 1 December 1985. Among the founding unions were the affiliates of the Federation o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AngloGold Ashanti
AngloGold Ashanti Limited is a global gold mining company. It was formed in 2004 by the merger of AngloGold and the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation. It is now a global gold producer with 21 operations on four continents. The company is listed on the New York, Johannesburg, Accra, London and Australian stock exchanges, as well as the Paris and Brussels bourses. In 2008, AngloGold produced 4.98 million ounces of gold from its operations, estimated to be seven percent of the global production. In 2009, the company's gold output dropped to 4.6 million ounces. As of the third quarter of 2014, Anglogold was the world's third-largest producer of gold, behind Barrick Gold and Newmont Mining. The company is claimed to be the 'most sophisticated and technologically advanced' mining operations with strict adherence to safety regulations. History AngloGold Ashanti was formed on 26 April 2004, after the High Court of Ghana approved the merger of AngloGold and the Ashanti Goldfie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of The Witwatersrand
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university has its roots in the mining industry, as do Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand in general. Founded in 1896 as the South African School of Mines in Kimberley, South Africa, Kimberley, it is the third oldest South African university in continuous operation. The university has an enrolment of 40,259 students as of 2018, of which approximately 20 percent live on campus in the university's 17 residences. 63 percent of the university's total enrolment is for Undergraduate education, undergraduate study, with 35 percent being Postgraduate education, postgraduate and the remaining 2 percent being Occasional Students. The 2017 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) places Wits University, with its overall score, as the h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaal Reefs Mining Disaster
The Vaal Reefs mine disaster occurred on 10 May 1995 when an underground locomotive in the Vaal Reefs gold mine in South Africa fell into the mine shaft, hitting an elevator carrying mine workers, and causing it to plunge to the bottom of the shaft, killing 104 miners. It is the worst elevator accident in history. The disaster The disaster occurred at 8:30 pm when a 12-ton underground locomotive operating at level 56 of the mine, below the surface, entered the wrong tunnel and went out of control. The locomotive and carriage crashed through a safety barrier intended for much smaller equipment, and fell into the Number 2 mine shaft. At the time, a double-storey elevator cage was ascending the shaft from level 62 below the surface, packed to its full capacity of over 100 miners who had completed their shift. The locomotive fell onto the elevator further down the shaft, causing the elevator to plunge to the bottom of the shaft, where it was further crushed to one third of its o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Senzeni Zokwana
Senzeni Zokwana is a South African politician. He is a former Member of Parliament and served until May 2019 as the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, having been appointed by President Jacob Zuma in May 2014. He previously served as the President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Labour career He became involved in trade union activism in 1980 during the apartheid-era in South Africa at the President Steyn gold mine in the Free State. He joined the ranks of NUM in 1983, became a shaft steward in 1984 and was elected to the branch executive committee in the President Steyn Mine in 1985. He subsequently moved up the ranks to become branch chairperson in 1987, vice regional chairperson in 1992 and regional chairperson from 1993 to 1994. He was first a shift overseer on safety matters and in 1995, he joined the NUM staff as a safety officer, after proving himself a dedicated advocate of modern mine safety techniques. Mr Zokwana was elected as vice preside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1951 Births
Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United Kingdom announces abandonment of the Tanganyika groundnut scheme for the cultivation of peanuts in the Tanganyika Territory, with the writing off of £36.5M debt. * January 15 – In a court in West Germany, Ilse Koch, The "Witch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment. * January 20 – Winter of Terror: Avalanches in the Alps kill 240 and bury 45,000 for a time, in Switzerland, Austria and Italy. * January 21 – Mount Lamington in Papua New Guinea erupts catastrophically, killing nearly 3,000 people and causing great devastation in Oro Province. * January 25 – Dutch author Anne de Vries releases the first volume of his children's novel '' Journey Through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
