Johannesburg | Wednesday
SOUTH Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Tuesday that talks to end a three-week strike at copper producer Palabora Mining Co remained deadlocked.
”It is becoming more and more apparent…that Palabora Mining’s management is not serious in seeing to the resolution of the strike,” the NUM said in a statement.
The union accused management of making fresh demands aimed at delaying a settlement, but it did not specify what the demands were.
”They keep shifting the goal posts by introducing new points aimed at causing delay,” the union said. ”Clearly, they are not interested in the resolution of the current strike”.
The company was not immediately available for comment.
Around 1_700 NUM members walked out on May 22 after the union rejected the latest wage offer from the company.
The strike has halted production from the open-pit mine, but the 140_000 tonne-a-year plant is being fed from stockpiles and ore from the new underground mine being built.
Palabora is 48.6% owned by international mining group Rio Tinto, the largest single shareholder, and produced 127,548 tonnes of copper last year. It employs around 2_500 people.
The union is demanding a 13% wage increase, or an eight percent rise, plus a housing allowance of R1,000 ($123) per month for each member.
The company is offering a flat eight percent increase.
Palabora said in April its refined output would drop by almost a third once it switched to a fully underground mining operation. The plan will trim the company’s workforce by 800.
Production from the open-cast mine is scheduled to end in January 2002, when the pit will be exhausted having reached its planned final depth. – Reuters