by Johannes Myburgh – JOHANNESBURG (AFP)
South African gold miner AngloGold Ashanti could fire 12,000 strikers who missed a deadline to return to work, a spokesman said Wednesday, even as unions and mine owners prepared to ink a new wage deal.
Only half the firm’s 24,000 striking mineworkers at various mines had returned to the job by a midday (1000 GMT) deadline, as production lingered at 40 percent, said spokesman Alan Fine.
“The fact that the deadline passed at noon means that indeed the process that would lead to the issuing of dismissal notices has begun, but obviously we continue to engage and we are seeking to avoid that eventuality,” Fine told AFP.
AngloGold Ashanti, the world’s third-largest gold producer, is the latest mining firm to fire its striking workers in a wave of violent work stoppages at South Africa’s mines that have weakened but refuse to die down.
The announcement came as Gold mine operators in South Africa, the continent’s leading producer of the precious mineral, were expected Thursday to sign a fresh pay deal with unions it is hoped will definitively end months of industrial unrest.
The deal is expected to adjust wages for the lowest paid workers as well as certain labour categories, though details remain sketchy.
Meanwhile, world number four gold miner Gold Fields said “more than 7,000 of the 8,100 employees that were dismissed at KDC East … yesterday (Tuesday), have today lodged appeals against their dismissal”.
The company had earlier said it let go 8,500 people at the KDC East shaft who ignored the deadline to clock in Tuesday afternoon following a seven-week intermittent stoppage. Around 28,000 workers downed tools across three of the firm’s mines northwest of Johannesburg.
Harmony Gold earlier said it would dismiss 5,400 strikers if they did not return to work by 6:00 am (0400 GMT) on Thursday.
A prominent businessman and director of Lonmin platinum miner also came under fire Wednesday for reportedly encouraging police violence at the firm’s Marikana mine northwest of Johannesburg.
Police opened fire on strikers at the mine on August 16, killing 34 as media rolled live footage of what has been termed the nation’s worst police brutality since apartheid.
A lawyer for the killed miners earlier told the inquiry into the killings that Cyril Ramaphosa, senior member of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and one of the country’s richest men, had called for maximum force to be used against strikers in emails to Lonmin management and government officials.
The ANC Youth League accused Ramaphosa of “agitating and inciting the South African Police” against the illegal strikers.
Tens of thousands of mining industry workers have downed tools over the past two months, predominantly in the north of the country, squeezing one of the nation’s most important economic sectors.
In most strikes workers had demanded monthly salaries of up to 18,500 rand ($2,150, 1,650 euros) — sometimes double their actual pay. Many also protested inhuman living conditions around the mines.
Violent stoppages started in the platinum sector in August, when over 50 people were killed in clashes.
Most strikes occurred outside traditional bargaining structures as workers rejected their traditional unions, thought to be too close to mine managers and the government.
The country’s powerful union federation Cosatu and its largest affiliate the National Union of Mineworkers are close allies of the ANC.
Lonmin’s strike ended with pay increases of up to 22 percent for miners, while top global platinum producer Anglo American Platinum let go 12,000 who refused to go underground.
Mining is the largest employer in South Africa and accounts for around a fifth of Africa’s largest economy.
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