South African gold miner Remaketsi Lekoala misses his wife and five children. When he started work at the Cooke gold mine west of Johannesburg 18 years ago, he knew he would have to leave his family at home hundreds of miles away and live in a crowded, all-male hostel due to the strict apartheid laws.
After white-minority rule was abolished 11 years ago, he hoped to reunite his family in improved housing so he could see them more than twice a year, at Christmas and Easter.
Although some mines have made great strides in upgrading housing, workers like Lekoala say they have been left behind.
"You don't have any privacy," he said. "It's difficult not knowing what kind of problems my family are having. I can't help as a father should."
Frustration over wages and housing boiled over this week when South Africa's biggest mining union called a nation-wide strike for Sunday, the first in the sector in 18 years.
Housing was a contentious issue leading to the strike call as unions sought a doubling of the "living-out" allowance that helps workers find accommodation outside the hostels.
Miners, who descend more than 3 km (nearly 2 miles) underground to drill ore in sweltering narrow tunnels, typically earn 2,500-3,000 rand ($387-$464) per month. They have rejected a wage rise offer of 4.5-5.0 percent and are demanding an increase of 12 percent.
UNEVEN PROGRESS: Progress has been patchy in boosting living conditions for the nearly 200,000 gold miners in South Africa, the world's biggest producer of gold and platinum. Some mines offer workers family housing, but the overwhelming bulk of gold miners still live in hostels. The employer's federation, the Chamber of Mines, puts the proportion at 60-70 percent while unions say it's 80 percent.
The single-sex hostels are a potent reminder of a brutal history that dates back a century when South Africa's white mining magnates insisted on using migrant blacks, often from neighbouring countries, as cheap labourers.
"I lived in hostels and it was horrible, we were about 18 in a 3-by-3 metre (yard) room with our bicycles in the middle," said Kgosi Mogaki, Director of Social Plan at the Mines Ministry.
Current conditions at the hostels vary widely.
The extent of crowding is a matter of dispute, with Lekoala and colleagues saying their rooms still have 16-18 men and mine owner Harmony Gold insisting the density is much less.
Harmony said it was unable to provide Reuters access to view the hostels where Lekoala and colleagues live before this article was released.
AngloGold Ashanti, the world's second biggest gold producer, says over the past decade it has managed to halve the average number of men per room at its hostels to six and Harmony says the average density at its hostels is 4.2.
AngloGold Spokesman Alan Fine said some hostels offer semi-private sleeping quarters and more improvements are in store as the firm moves to implement an industry-wide agreement with unions to give at least 50 percent of miners a choice of accommodation by 2009 and give all miners an option by 2013.
Harmony's Jackie Mathebula, executive in charge of human resources, says the firm plans to spend 25.2 million rand ($3.9 million) over the next year to upgrade hostels.
The industry says it has not moved faster to improve housing due to the sheer scale and expense of providing housing in the most labour-intensive mining sector.
"It's the numbers, it's a tremendously expensive exercise," said Frans Barker, chief negotiator at the Chamber of Mines.
The housing problem is less severe in other mining sectors such as coal, which has smaller numbers and which recruits more workers from nearby communities.
HEALTH CONCERNS: The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) says that crowding at hostels is still a problem at mines like Harmony's Cooke, exacerbating health and social problems.
"To just group so many people in the same room, it's unacceptable, it affects people's lives. If someone has TB (tuberculosis), another person will be easily infected," said Angeline Sokwaliwa, NUM housing shop steward at Cooke and Harmony's other mines in the Randfontein area.
The hostels are also a factor in the rapid-fire spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa, where an estimated 6.5 million of the country's 47 million population are infected with HIV, she said.
"The miners get bored in the hostels and they go to the nearest informal settlement and socialise there with ladies."
Unions say they are demanding a more than doubling of the "living-out" housing allowance to 1,500 rand per month - provided to those who want to move out from hostels - because the current allowance is only enough to live in a shantytown.
In addition to the long-term agreement with unions to improve housing conditions, mining firms are also under pressure from the government to boost standards.
The Mining Charter that became law last year seeks to improve opportunities for the black majority, demanding greater equity ownership, more management positions and better living conditions for miners and their communities.
Although miners like Lekoala look forward to the day when they can bring families to live with them, not all miners want to move out of shared accommodation.
Miners who are reluctant to uproot families from their homes in the countryside want improved conditions at hostels.
"We are not saying demolish (all) hostels," said Mogaki at the Mines Ministry. "What we are saying is that where there are hostels, let them be an accommodation that when you go there you don't feel you are being humiliated."
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