OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 7.00pm
THE National Union of Mineworkers, South Africa’s biggest mining union, said on Friday it would organise a one-day strike at Free State gold mines next week to protest against job losses and poverty.
The action scheduled for March 22 would affect about five gold companies operating in the Free State province.
”All the gold mines in the Free State gold fields are going to embark on a strike,” said NUM spokesman Ikaneng Matlala.
The union has about 50000 members in the Free State, but Matlala declined to estimate how many workers were expected to join the action.
He said the strike was part of a campaign against unemployment launched by the 1.8 million-strong Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). The effort is set to climax in a national strike on May 10.
”It (the mine strike) is part and parcel of the struggle against poverty and job losses,” Matlala said.
NUM said the five companies expected to be affected by the labour action were AngloGold Ltd, Gold Fields Ltd, Harmony Gold Co, Avgold and African Rainbow Minerals.
At their peak, South Africa’s gold mines were the backbone of the country’s economy, employing 530000 miners in 1987. But the industry was forced to restructure after the end of apartheid in 1994 opened South Africa’s economy to foreign competition.
That, coupled with a steadily declining gold price, has trimmed the gold mining workforce to around 200000 today. — Reuters