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Italian miner slits wrist on live TV to protest mine shutdown

published by Tom Sullivan on Thu, 2012-08-30 21:01

A Sardinian miner has slashed his wrist during a live TV address in protest against the closing of a local facility. Some 100 workers barricaded themselves in front of the mine, which is packed with almost 700 kilograms of explosives.

Read the full story on Russia Today

Tags: 
ITALY
UNEMPLOYMENT
PROTEST
ECONOMY
CRISIS

Comments

Submitted by Heydrich on Fri, 2012-08-31 01:13.

This is starting to happen all over the word. I've spent two weeks closely following the miners' strike in South Africa, in which strikers were corraled into an enclosure, and 34 of them were gunned down on 16 Aug, plus many more wounded, most of them shot in the back as they fled.  The growing tsunami of mining strikes is a huge story with global implications, because so much of modern society and the global financial economy depends on items extracted from mines. (All types of mines.) And also because mines are a microsm of worker exploitation. The platinum mining strike in South Africa, for example, has the City of London on edge. Financiers and capitalist owners are clanging the alarm bells. Miners are on strike in Spain and Italy. There are rumblings in Bolivia and Russia. China is next.

Mines have a special place in the wretched history of labor. Unrest in mines has been central to the histories of England and Ireland, for example. On 20 April 1914 the US government masscacred 25 striking miners and their children at Ludlow, Colorado.

Some mines are strip mines, above the surface, but mines below the surface have entrances that are easily sabotaged. And as I said, this is crucial because the world vitally depends on minerals and whatnot extracted from mines. Oxides, metals, precious metals, minerals -- without these, society as we know it stops.

Submitted by Heydrich on Fri, 2012-08-31 19:33.

Labor unrest in mines is beyond Orwellian. In South Africa, 500 policemen used tear gas, water cannons, and razor wire to confine striking miners. Then the police opened fire on the confined miners, murdering 34 and wounding many more. Then they jailed 270 of the survivors and formally charged them with murdering the 34. The bizarre twisting was accomplished via an obscure law that had been used by the apartheid government.

Police commissioner general Riah Phiyega says her officers "did nothing wrong" and acted in "self-defence."

More than 150 of the arrested miners have filed complaints that they have been beaten up in police cells by officers, according to the Independent Police Complaints Directorate.

Submitted by Tom Sullivan on Sat, 2012-09-01 08:05.

Unrest in mines has been central to the histories of England and Ireland, for example. On 20 April 1914 the US government masscacred 25 striking miners and their children at Ludlow, Colorado.

We don't have much mining in Ireland, apart from Zinc/Lead mining at a few sites, one of which is the second largest Zinc/Lead mining operation in Europe. In the past alluvial gold and copper were mined but those operations have long closed. In England, Wales and Scotland, where coal was one of the most mined substances, labour unrest was prevalent. Ditto with the United States, resulting in clashes such as the Battle of Blair Mountain and attempted false flags such as that at Cripple Creek.

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