The 1987 NUM Miners' Strike & Student-Worker Solidarity

This is an important piece of anti-apartheid trade union and student ephemera from the August 1987 National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Strike—one of the largest and most significant industrial actions in South African history. Led by NUM’s then-General Secretary, Cyril Ramaphosa, the strike mobilized over 300,000 black mineworkers across gold and coal mines, shutting down major production for three weeks during the height of the 1980s State of Emergency.

The Student–Worker Anti-Apartheid Alliance:

Rather than being produced directly by union headquarters, this flyer was edited by the Economic Research Committee (ERC) and published by the Students' Representative Council (SRC) at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), printed via the university’s Central Print Unit. It highlights the critical tactical alliance built during the late 1980s between progressive, English-speaking university campuses and black trade union movements to circumvent state censorship and rally urban campus support.

Pioneering the Recognition of June 16 (Youth Day):

One of the core demands highlighted on the document is making June 16 a paid public holiday. Long before June 16 was officially institutionalized as Youth Day in post-apartheid South Africa to honor the 1976 Soweto Uprising, NUM and allied student organizations were actively enforcing its political and economic recognition directly through labor bargaining and workplace strikes.

Quantifying the "Living Wage" Deficit:

The back of the flyer provides an economic breakdown contrasting the Chamber of Mines' average black gold miner wage of R235 per month against the Human Sciences Research Council's (HSRC) minimum subsistence calculation of R419.10 per month—showing that average wages covered barely half the basic caloric requirements for a miner's family of five.

Highlighting Shaft Safety & Mining Fatalities:

The flyer explicitly politicizes mine safety, citing that over 400 mineworkers died and over 1,000 were injured annually in South African mines at the time. NUM used the 1987 negotiations to demand danger pay and a key increase in death benefits from 2 years' to 5 years' earnings for surviving families—marking a pivotal shift where occupational health and safety became central to South African labor rights negotiations.

325mm x 410mm

Folds; small tears; chips to the edges.

R1,250