How many people die for car manufacturers to make billions of euros
The Handelsblatt analysis, "The darkest secrets of the German automotive industry," begins with the story of Mzoxolo Magidiwana, a 24-year-old South African youth. Known people call him the "dead man" because he will never recover from the physical trauma suffered when the police opened fire on him and his colleagues five years ago. The bullets have torn his abdomen, and in his right arm he has no power; and it can not go well anymore. It was operated, but the holes through which the bullets came out are still visible.
Magidiwana was one of the leaders of the 3,000 miners who struck on August 12, 2012 to protest poor working conditions and low salaries in the Marikana platinum mine in South Africa. Under the earth, they were wounded by accidents, and the ubiquitous dust was sickening. On the surface, they breathed the toxic smoke from the platinum melter.
The brutal reaction of local police, which acted in coordination with the British mining company Lonmin, was later described as a massacre. The police have fired 400 bullets in the crowd, killing 37 workers and wounding more.
And now, as Magidiwana says, "German companies bear part of the responsibility of the tragedies at Marikana." It refers to automakers in Germany buying platinum produced in the South African mine. And not just German companies buy platinum from Lonmin. South African miners risk their own health and their own lives for the Germans to be healthy. And the murders and abuses in the Marikana area have not ceased since the massacre five years ago. Lonmin is a platinum supplier for Western manufacturers. The German chemical colossus BASF is one of the most important importers. The company uses platinum to catalyze catalytic converters, which are then installed on German machines. It can be said that South African workers are endangering their health so the Germans have clean air in their cities. Indirectly, it can even be said that German cars have a share of responsibility for the death and suffering of workers not only in Marikana, but from mines all over the world. This is true for many other large and respectable companies that process raw materials from me, such as Apple and Samsung mobile phone manufacturers.
In the Congo, thousands of children are digging into me after the cobalt. In China, dust from graphite exploits air and water. Graphite is used for electric car batteries and smart mobile phones. In Peru, the protests of copper mine workers have degenerated into violence. The products of all these mines reach also German cars.
The supply chain of the German automotive industry seems clean, but the raw materials it feeds on is still dirty. For a long time, car manufacturers have ignored the problem. All they cared about was that the price was low and the quality of the materials was good. But in recent years they have become more aware of their responsibilities in society. Bombing with the shocking reports of human rights abuses and the toxic emissions scandal of VW diesel engines, automotive executives have acted to verify procurement procedures and find solutions. Daimler, BMW and VW do not deny that there is a problem in the supply chain and that they have to find a solution somehow. BMW has been focusing on this issue since 2012, seeking to make sources of the supply chain as transparent as possible. The maker of luxury cars has almost done this with its steel sources and identified 30 raw materials for whose desires it wants more transparency.
An average German car weighs about 1,300 kilograms, of which about one tonne is metals: steel, iron, aluminum, copper and small platinum. Electric cars do not have heavy metal components, such as the combustion engine, but use hundreds of kilograms of battery materials: lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel and manganese.