Thirty-three years after it started, Fiji’s longest strike by workers at the Vatukoula Gold Mines came to an end in June, with the Coalition government promising a payout of FJ$9.2 million (US$4.6 million) for the workers as settlement with the Fiji Mine Workers Union.
Coming to FJ$25,000 (US$12,500) for each of the 365 workers, the settlement is too late for 68 others who died during the strike, which protested working conditions. Their grievances included hefty pay deductions for the use of safety equipment required to work underground and being forced to work while ill – according to the findings of an Oxfam investigation in 2003.
“The strike devastated the lives and livelihoods of Vatukoula mine workers,” said Fiji’s Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Professor Biman Prasad, while announcing the payout in his 2024-2025 Budget address.
“Many families were shattered by the long-running strike action,” said Prasad.
The beginnings
Vatukoula Gold Mines is located nine kilometres inland from the sleepy little town of Tavua, in northern Viti Levu. With a population of just over 2400 in the 1996 Census, Tavua was declared a town in 1992. Hence, when the strike kicked off in 1991, for many in the communities in the area, the mine was one of few means to a steady income. With little alternative economic activity except for sugar cane farming, what, then, prompted hundreds of people to risk their livelihoods and stand against their employer for more than three decades?
At the outset, the then-operators of the mine, Emperor Mines Limited, refused to acknowledge the demands of workers stationed at a picket line outside the mine, deeming them absent from their positions and terminating their employment. This decision was backed by a Fiji High Court and later Court of Appeal ruling deeming the withdrawal of labour by the strikers to be unlawful. The ruling enabled Emperor to evict striking employees from their staff quarters. An outbreak of violence claimed the life of a court bailiff when police were mobilised to forcefully remove those workers who had refused to abide by the order to vacate.
While Emperor’s tactics proved successful in forcing some to return to the mines, hundreds remained determined to continue the fight.
Oxfam investigation
When over a decade later the strike was no closer to ending, the Fiji Mine Workers Union sought the support of international charity, Oxfam. Oxfam Mining Ombudsman, Ingrid Macdonald carried out an investigation at Vatukoula in November of 2003.
Having spoken with 50 striking miners, Macdonald reported that each one “alleged that the reason they decided to strike in 1991 was because of the low wages, unsafe working conditions, health concerns, poor housing and environmental standards”.
According to her report, at the time of her investigations, over 300 people still periodically sat on a picket line outside the mine and complained of the hardships endured by their families because of their refusal to return to work until their grievances had been addressed.
Macdonald’s report highlighted the stories of several individuals, detailing the effects on the lives of the strikers beyond the loss of wages. Among the 1991 strikers was one Sanmogen, whose familial life would take an unfortunate turn due to his involvement in the union’s movement against Emperor.
Sanmogen joined the fight after losing his finger in the mine. When interviewed by Macdonald in 2003, he reported that his financial hardships had caused him to lose touch with his wife and two young sons. These tales of woe revealed the reasons behind the strikers’ resolve regardless of consequence. Former underground mine worker, Misake Tahaka told Macdonald of Emperor’s treatment of him and fellow workers. “I worked with no mask and breathed fumes – including fumes from dynamiting,” Tahaka reportedly said.
“In 1981, I blacked out from the fumes and ended up in hospital. I didn’t regain consciousness until I was in the hospital. The doctor said I could no longer go underground. The company sent me back underground – I told them that the doctor said I shouldn’t go but the company didn’t care. I worked for ten more years underground.”
Macdonald’s report also exposed instances of hefty pay deductions for the provision of necessary equipment for workers. Tahaka told the Mining Ombudsman that he was paid FJ$1.50 (US$0.75) an hour, working seven days a week in the mine prior to the 1991 strike. According to the report, he alleged that he only received FJ$40 (US$20) a week after tax because Emperor deducted the cost of his helmet, gloves and boots from his salary. The accusation of salary deductions for safety equipment was corroborated by other staff members at the time but no word was received from Emperor to either confirm or deny the allegations.
Fiji’s Health and Safety at Work Act of 1996 and later the Health and Safety at Work (General Workplace Conditions) Regulations of 2003 finally established that it would be the responsibility of an employer to provide personal protective equipment and clothing of approved standards to workers without any cost to the workers. But in 1991 and prior, such occurrences could not be held against the company, nor did the company take responsibility for such safety provisions.
Deputy Secretary of the Fiji Trade Union Congress (FTUC) in 2003, Rajeshwar Singh, described the state of industrial relations at Vatukoula as “unhealthy”. He advised Macdonald that the Congress considered Emperor management to “have a record of bad-faith bargaining – by behaving unfairly and frustrating the current [union] and workers through delay tactics”.
It was claimed that this led to the Union being seen as “undermined and weakened” by its members.
Although the strike actively continued throughout the 33 years, the picketing became less and less frequent. The strike continued mainly through union meetings.
The decline of unions
Speaking to Islands Business, veteran Fijian academic in the field of Development Studies, Professor Vijay Naidu observed that unions had retained a level of respect and power in Fiji until about the mid-1980s – loud and ever-present in the fight to uphold worker rights and ensure worker representation in decisions that affected their livelihoods.
Over the following three decades, however, the power of unions has been in decline, said Naidu. There were fewer strikes in the 2000s, not due to a lack of cause but a changing culture around the acceptability of rebellion and the use of fear tactics to stifle the union movement by those in power, he said.
A paper by Naidu published in the 2009 book, The 2006 Military Takeover in Fiji: A Coup to End All Coups? outlined the part played by Fiji’s last coup in the downfall of unions. Military harassment of union leaders and activists, the near endless list of industries deemed ‘essential’ complicating their ability to mobilise strike action, the racialisation of unions leading to splits from within, all played into the overarching story of the apparent death of the strike culture and of unions during the reign of the previous government, according to several academics and unionists of the time.
“When we talk about the right to strike,” current FTUC National Secretary, Felix Anthony says, “I know there is a generation of workers now that have never actually witnessed a strike, and that was only because these rights were being denied by the previous government. While the Constitution gave us all the rights, the previous government did not allow the exercise of these rights.”
While the previous FijiFirst government made several assurances that the Vatukoula strikers would receive compensation, Anthony says it was all “empty promises”. “No amount of compensation is ever going to be enough to account for the suffering that the workers have had to go through,” Anthony said. “But we had to arrive at a figure considering we did not want this delayed further and being considerate of what the government could afford.”
With the resolution of the Vatukoula strike and the living history lesson it provides, a new generation of union voices may soon be ready to push change and break through new barriers for further improvements in the protection of workers’ rights.
