Union leaders representing striking miners at three of Botswana’s diamond mines will face charges of contempt of court on Tuesday afternoon.
”Branch leaders were served with notices during the night at their homes in Jwaneng, Orapa and Letlhakane,” said Botswana Mining Workers’ Union general secretary Donald Lobotse.
Ten union representatives from each of the three mines will face the charges.
Mining company Debswana said overall production had not yet been affected.
The strikes, which started on Sunday, are over wage awards. They have been ruled illegal and employees were warned on Saturday of contempt charges if they stopped work.
Lobotse said the court appearances could only harden the attitude of the strikers and make them more determined than ever not to return to work until the Debswana mining group management agreed to resume bargaining.
”There has still been no response to our offer on Monday to reopen talks at the point where they deadlocked,” he said.
He said the union was prepared to talk provided Debswana dropped its stand that the offer on the table was not negotiable.
Negotiations deadlocked in July. The union was demanding a 16% increase in the cost of living allowance plus a 25% of annual salary as a once-off production bonus.
Debswana offered a 10% allowance, plus a production bonus of five percent of annual salary. After a last minute intervention by Botswana President Festus Mogae on July 30, the bonus offer was raised to 10%.
Human resources manager Jacob Sesinyi said on Tuesday that overall production had not yet been affected, but a full production report would be issued later.
He refuted reports attributed to the union that 95% of Debswana workers were on strike and the mines were at a standstill.
He stuck by figures released by the company on Monday that at Orapa, the world’s largest diamond mine and its satellite mine Letlhakane, 800 workers out of a total of 3 200 did not report for work at midnight on Sunday; and at Jwaneng, the world’s richest mine, 500 out of 2 500 did not report at 6am on Monday.
”If there are any changes, these figures will be updated during the morning,” he said. – Sapa