by Dimakatso Sefatsa
Workers’ Month in South Africa takes place each year throughout May, beginning with Workers’ Day on 1 May, to recognise the contributions, rights, and ongoing struggles of the working class. The month serves as a reminder of the importance of fair labour practices, safe working conditions, and the continued pursuit of social justice.
Yet, every year on Workers’ Day, the speeches follow a familiar pattern.
We hear about dignity, solidarity, and workers’ rights. We are reminded of progress and of the importance of workers to the economy and to democracy. There are promises of jobs, better living conditions, and renewed efforts to address unemployment and inequality.
But for people living near mines, the reality often looks very different.
In mining communities, people breathe in dust, watch their water change colour, and live with the health effects of years of pollution. At the same time, a familiar cycle repeats itself. A new mine is proposed, or an existing one wants to expand. Government approval is required. A community meeting is held.
At these meetings, the message is consistent: this project will bring jobs. Direct jobs. Jobs for local people.
These promises are documented in Environmental Impact Assessment reports , presented during public participation processes, and relied on to support applications for approval. These are among some the aspects decision-makers consider when deciding whether a mining project should go ahead. But once approval is granted, things become far less certain. The jobs may be fewer than promised, temporary, outsourced, or may not materialise at all. There is little follow-up, no consistent way to verify whether commitments are honoured, and no clear consequences when they are not.
This creates a gap between what communities are promised and what is delivered.
How the process works
When a mine applies for authorisation, it must go through a public participation process. Communities are invited to meetings to raise concerns. In almost every case, the mine’s application documents present job creation as a key benefit. Sometimes specific numbers are given;sometimes they are not. But the message remains the same: the project will bring employment.
These claims are included in the documents submitted to regulators and are considered part of the approval process. Yet the law does not clearly require that these job promises be fulfilled once approval is granted. There is no standard condition mandating delivery, no automatic penalty if commitments are not met, and no reliable system of follow-up. The mine is approved and built. The community, encouraged to support it or at least not oppose it, is left waiting for jobs that were never guaranteed.
This is not an isolated case. It is a pattern.
Who really gets these jobs
In many of these communities, people are unable to pass the medical tests required for mining jobs.. This is not because they are unwilling to work or lack skills. It is because years of living near mines and power stations have affected their health through long-term exposure to air pollution.
So the pattern deepens. Communities carry the long-term health impacts of existing mining and energy activities. A new project is proposed, or an authorised one expands. Jobs are promised to those same communities. Yet when opportunities arise, some people are excluded at the point of medical screening. The project is still approved. The promise of employment remains part of the justification. But for many, it is not a benefit they can realistically access.
This raises a fundamental question: who are these promises really for, and can they be relied on in decisions that affect people’s lives?
And if you do get the job, your employer is not the mine
Even when jobs do materialise, another issue arises.
Increasingly, mines do not employ workers directly. Operations are outsourced to contractors. The mine owner holds the licence, controls the resource, and benefits from the extraction, while the worker is employed by a separate company.
This matters when something goes wrong.
Workers employed by contractors may move between sites over time, sometimes working for multiple mines under different contracts. When illness develops, it becomes difficult to determine where the harm occurred. Questions of causation arise about which mine is responsible and to what extent. At the same time, contractors may close, be replaced, or lack the resources to meet their obligations. The mine owner can then rely on the contractual structure to deny responsibility.
The result is fragmented accountability. The mine owner retains the benefit, the contractor carries operational responsibility, and the worker bears the consequences and the cost.
What government should do
The responsibility to address this lies with the regulators who grant these licences. If job creation is relied on to support an application, three things should follow.
First, the promise must become a condition of approval. Job commitments should be clear, measurable, and enforceable, with defined numbers, timeframes, and consequences if they are not met. If a mine is not prepared to make that commitment, job creation should not be presented as a benefit.
Second, the health reality must be considered. It is not enough to promise jobs without assessing whether local people can realistically access them. Regulators should require a credible assessment of whether affected communities can meet the medical requirements for employment, and this should be factored into decision-making.
Third, contractor arrangements must be transparent and accountable. Regulators and communities need to know who the actual employer will be, what protections are in place, and who is responsible if workers are injured or become ill. This includes addressing the difficulty of proving causation where workers move between sites.
These are not technical adjustments. They go on to determine whether the benefits used to justify environmental harm are real and enforceable.
What Workers’ Day should really mean
Workers’ Day is not only about the past.
It is also about what is happening now, in community halls where people are shown application documentation and told that a project will benefit them. The promise of jobs, made in public meetings and relied on to secure government approval, should mean something. If a mine is not prepared to make that promise binding and enforceable, it should not be used to justify approval.
That is not asking too much. It is the minimum requirement that communities and the working people in this country deserve.
