So, wage growth in the mining sector almost doubled the rate of inflation between 2001 and 2020. In 2001, the average earnings per employee per year stood at R59,874. By 2020, that had reached R335,096, a five-and-a-half-fold increase. But it comes off grotesquely low levels.

A decade since a wildcat strike at Lonmin culminated in the Marikana Massacre on 16 August 2012, when police shot 34 miners dead, South Africa's mine workers by almost any measure are better off. And in the decade before the mayhem, their lot was also improving.

This is the picture that emerges from public data compiled by the Minerals Council South Africa, the main industry body, and Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) data on consumer inflation. It tells a story of real wage growth over the past two decades, reversing the iniquitous legacy of the past that saw decades of stagnant and even falling wages as the overwhelmingly black, migrant labour force was subjected to ruthless exploitation.

"This is because of our efforts," Joseph Mathunjwa, president of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), told this correspondent recently at the signing of a five-year wage agreement between Amcu and Impala Platinum. The deal will...