Kurt Bock (BASF) sieht trotz Massaker an Arbeitern keinen Handlungsbedarf

The bloody end of a workers' uprising. It is almost four years since the South African police ended a strike by miners with a massacre. In the end, 34 miners lie dead on the ground. They had been striking for higher wages. The horror was the top topic in world news, also in Germany. These were scenes that recalled the worst times of the South African apartheid regime. For days, the miners have been demonstrating. The man in the green T-shirt is also riddled with bullets, but not quite dead. Fear, money, I would be sorry if I think about it, the memories come back. Comeback in a drunken stupor. Rollo is disabled. Like his comrades, he had dug platinum, the most expensive metal in the world, out of the earth and then struck for higher wages. This employer takes the lives of those who slave for him, the lives of those who are driven to this work by poverty. I check who his direct employer is: the British-South African mining company Lonmin, which became rich through the mining and sale of platinum. One question remained unanswered in the news almost four years ago: who is the main buyer of the platinum from the South African death mine? The answer is in Lonmin's 2012 annual report. The largest customer is the German chemical company BASF. 58 percent of revenue, more than half, Lonmin achieved through sales to the Germans. BASF pays $505 million a year for the platinum. The chemical giant needs large quantities of platinum for the construction of vehicle catalytic converters. With that, it makes almost ten percent of its turnover. The valuable precious metal can convert exhaust poisons into less harmful substances. So platinum makes our city air a little cleaner. Even used catalytic converters still have value, so specialized companies like here near Cologne do good business. They extract the precious platinum and sell it back to BASF. Even though the word BASF was initially missing from the headlines about the massacre of the miners, in the corporate headquarters in Ludwigshafen, heads have been smoking since 2012: what do we say when our connections to Lonmin become known? The air becomes even thinner for the company when, in 2015, an investigation report by the South African government on the massacre is released. It states that the platinum supplier Lonmin bears partial blame because it treated the workers poorly. Panorama approaches Kurt Bock, the CEO of BASF, on the issue at the company's annual press conference two months ago. We meet a thoughtful and well-prepared company boss. There are suppliers because we have to think about standards, labor norms, human rights. Will you separate from Lonmin?

So Lonmin is to remain a major supplier. The massacre is almost four years ago. Has the life of the workers improved since then? We are in the platinum belt, the mining area northwest of Johannesburg. At two o'clock at night, buses come to the slums and pick up the workers. Mainly for German industry, they dig the expensive metal out of the ground. We would like to accompany them underground, but Lonmin does not allow it. We get covertly shot footage from 1000 meters depth. It is loud, narrow, and dark. Fixed lighting is missing. The workers have to orient themselves with their headlamps and advance into the rock with the jackhammer.

In this position I work. I have to use a lot of my own physical strength. I hold the jackhammer the whole time. The machine is very heavy. My spine hurts because I have to bend over constantly when drilling. Every time I go into action, I think that I might not come back. There is a great danger of being hit by falling rocks. You cannot understand what it is like down there if you have not experienced it yourself.

The accommodation of the workers by Lonmin is also inadequate. Although the company promised the construction of thousands of solid houses ten years ago, the vast majority of workers and their families still live in tin shacks without electricity and without toilets. Water is available in the slums only in a few places. Sometimes Raster So Hardy was already at the strike in 2012. He says that hardly anything has improved since then.

Wage increases were eaten up by inflation. Improvements were promised but not fulfilled. Therefore, we are going into new negotiations in July. We have no choice but to rely on negotiations in July.

Cheap labor and miserable accommodation. It is unacceptable that mine workers, 20 years after the beginning of our democracy, still live in this misery, in slums. This is the continuation of mining methods from the apartheid era.

How one profits from these methods, BASF knows very well. The German company has been active in South Africa since 1966. Now, at least, it has commissioned an agency to scrutinize the supplier Lonmin. Audit is what it's called in consultant German. The audit identified potential for improvement, for example in complaint management. The responsible BASF man had even more new German terms ready: 'That is a kind of grievance mechanism. Also, Wilfried Goebels' complaining is always like that. Complaint in a previously described mechanism, and that is something we recommend.' Hard-to-understand Anglicisms to meet corporate social responsibility. A panel discussion in Berlin raises doubts.

At least BASF man Thorsten Pinkepank wants to travel to South Africa soon to coach Lonmin.

By the way, before the conference I will give a presentation on what we are doing, just coaching. That means that BASF has a responsibility to also influence the supplier, to influence the topic, to influence recordings.

Almost four years after the bloodbath, how credible is it that the workers' lives are still in misery despite the influence? So the question: what consequences do you draw from this?

Our conclusion from this is that we want to continue working to improve the living conditions for the workers.

You must be blind. Blind to the misery in which the miners live. You are like the famous ostrich that sticks its head in the sand and pretends to see nothing.

BASF boss Bock looks ahead. He has extended the supply contract with Lonmin and makes one thing clear: he does not want to interfere in future labor disputes.

Regret, yes, but the main thing for BASF is that business continues.