Week 10

The reading for this week on South Africas mining massacre is an eye opening reading. Here in Canada, we never think these things will happen; we could never imagine cops and locals killing those who work in a mine because they are on a strike. However, this is the sad reality for many families who were involved in the South African mining massacre. When the researchers from the University were speaking with the woman whose husband was killed in the massacre, she explained that her husband was the one who was providing for the family, and without him her children barely had breakfast, while the polices children ate much better food (pg, 20). Since the police played a large part in the massacre and got paid more (and also didnt die so they could continue to support their families), the polices children were better off than the woman whose husband had died in the massacre. She was worried about what her childrens future would be like, and if they would have less opportunities now that they had much less of an income. This is the sad reality that these people needed to face during the massacre. The basis for the grounds of the strike were very simple: the people wanted better pay for the long and hard hours of  work they were doing. The workers stated that they got paid so little, and often did get lunch breaks at work, were treated poorly for superiors, and had to work on weekends, as this was mandatory. When the workers went the head office in order to talk to the management about getting more money, the guards at the building open fired on them, badly injuring a few people. I think this shows how many corporations, even in North America but especially in this case, do not care about the well being of their workers. They see their workers as low life people who do not deserve respect or dignity and who will work for nearly no money without complaining. However this was not the case in South Africa, and many people lost their lives due to thinking the company would think rationally and would give the workers a raise. The actual massacre killed many workers, and left so many African families without any income to help raise and feed their children. When reading this book, I was shocked by what I read.  I did not still think issues like this were happening in the world, and I did not think that companies in 2012 would deny workers a fair wage. I think it is important for more people here to be aware of what happened on August 16 2012, as we often put these action past companies, but should we? When reading these chapters, I found that people here need to be more educated of these issues happening still today around the world, as this is something I would think many people would expect to happen in the 1920s, but not today. How can we make people more aware of this issue? If I had not read this book, I would even be unaware of this issue? How can people in North America become more aware of this issue today when such few people know about it? What would happen if everyone knew about this issue? Would situations like these continue to happen?

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