Thirty years ago, a group of South African mineworkers dreamt of something bigger than wages and shifts. They dreamt of a future where their children could walk into lecture halls, offices and hospitals, not just down into shafts. Out of that dream, theMineworkers Investment Trust(MIT) was born in 1995.
MIT grew out of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM); an organisation forged in struggle. Workers who once stood shoulder to shoulder against police on picket lines now put their hands together to build an investment company. The move was radical.
Instead of only fighting for fair wages and better employment conditions, they wanted to create wealth that would outlive them. It started with just R3m coming from member subscriptions, a small fortune for a union, but barely a drop in SA’s post-apartheid economy. Yet what mattered was not the size of the seed but the soil in which it was planted.
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It was planted in sacrifice, in solidarity, and in the firm belief that everyday people could lay down tracks for their children’s tomorrow. To give that dream shape and structure, MIT established theMineworkers Investment Company(MIC) as its commercial arm. MIC became one of the first 100% black-owned investment companies in the country, charged with turning mineworkers’ collective sacrifice into sustainable wealth.
Every rand of profit earned by MIC is returned to MIT, which reinvests it into education, training, housing and social justice. The trust is the brain; the company is the heart. Together, they have created one of the most enduring examples of worker-led empowerment in democratic SA.
From that partnership, MIT and MIC became trailblazers. Through MIC, the trust took early stakes in companies like Primedia, Tracker and Peermont Hotels, making mineworkers shareholders in industries that once excluded them. Over time, the investments grew into a multibillion-rand asset base.
Dividends flowed back into MIT, fuelling scholarships, training centres, and community initiatives that continue to change lives. Paul Nkuna, one of the early leaders of the MIC, still remembers the intention clearly: “We were mindful that mineworkers would still not be in a position 10 to 20 years down the line to pay for their children’s education.” It was a promise whispered across kitchen tables in mining hostels and family homes: “Our children will not go through what we went through.”
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