On this day in 2013, an estimated 80,000 - 90,000 gold miners went on strike in South Africa, demanding a 60% wage increase to $775 per month.

Mine workers in South Africa have had a long and difficult labor struggle, from colonizing forces maintaining brutal working conditions in the early 20th century to the government using live ammunition to massacre 34 striking miners just a year prior to this strike.

Lesiba Seshoka, a spokesperson for the National Union of Mineworkers said this about the strike action: "The NUM has noted government's wishes that industrial action be avoided and dares the state to explain which side it is on. The union is aware of the devastating impact industrial action would have on the economy, which is largely a white man's economy with no benefits for poor black mineworkers."

2013 was called "The Year of the Strike" by South African reporter Alec Hogg, with tens of thousands of auto manufacturing, agricultural, and construction workers also going on strike in the same year.