South
African Marikana workers disappointingly turn down a low payment
offer from the world's biggest platinum producers while Mongolia miners suffer
to help their country prosper. Miners working for huge corporations like
Xstrata an Anglo American Platinum (Amlpats) receive minimal payment while
under lax environmental conditions and very detrimental living sustainability.
Currently, miners are known for extracting core materials and resources to help
produce income and increase economic growth for their nation.
In Marikana, the military is on high alert due from the
increasingly amount of strikes and murder. The National Union of Miners (NUM)
is concerned about the amount of violence and the number of job losses within
the mining sector. Workers in Mongolia seem to be increasing, but have
developed some kind of lung disease which could possibly be inherited due to
the amount of dust traveling through the air. Just like Marikana, water supply
is diminishing and electricity is only allowed to be used at a bare minimum,
"The development is inexorably altering the
area, for good and ill" (Khanbogd Journal).
While the South African Marikana workers purpose a general strike
because their demands are not met, Mongolia workers are living off of lower
than $2 (U.S) and have experienced the destruction of their home land.
Mongolian workers are trapped under an economic resource filtration in order to
support their families. Many workers used herd goats and sheep for their basic
income, but now since the mining companies have destroyed their land there is
no way out of this misery, but to only help their nation prosper in dust. The
land was an unlimited resource for them to make cheese, milk and other foods,
but mining is limitedly destroying their ultimate resource for herding their
animals. Many of the workers see this as an introduction to prosperity for
their nation because the mining companies are helping get the most out of their
resources which ultimately brings them an expanding economy by thirty five
percent and will potentially double their exports.
Sources:
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