A total of 1 700 miners at Impala Platinum in Rustenburg have been fired following an illegal strike, operations executive Paul Visser said on Friday. He said 1 700 rock drill operators at the Impala Platinum south section went on what he called ”a wildcat and illegal strike” on Wednesday.
Before going on strike, the operators did not let the company or even the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) which represents them, know about their complaints, Visser said.
”We knew nothing. NUM also did not know,” Visser said.
The miners submitted a list of four demands about their working conditions after the strike had started, Visser said.
He said he insisted that the miners return to work before talks to resolve their complaints could start, but ”one NUM leader” told the miners to continue the strike after the talks began.
”They stepped out of a win-win situation. So, this morning [Friday] 1 700 were discharged,” Visser said.
There are 23 000 miners at the Rustenburg mine. NUM general secretary Gwede Mantashe refused to divulge whether the entire workforce at the mine was on strike as the union ”wants to engage the company quietly”.
”We must use our energy to try to resolve the problems,” Mantashe said.
”Paul Visser is excited by default. He is employed to do that [fire the workers].”
Asked if Visser was correct when he said the union knew nothing about the strike, Mantashe said: ”He cannot speak for us. He does not speak for the union.”
Mantashe added that ”a further group of workers joined the strike” on Thursday, without elaborating. – Sapa