The Chamber of Mines on Tuesday told the representative unions for the gold mining sector, that the sector was experiencing its worst crisis for the past 44 years, Solidarity said in a statement.
Earlier, the three unions, Solidarity, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the United Association of South Africa (UASA), started talks with the chamber regarding wages and other conditions of employment.
Solidarity quoted Chamber of Mines representative Dr Frans Barker as saying that shareholders of gold mining companies could put their money in a Post Office savings account as they would get a better return than in investments in the gold mining sector.
At present some mines are losing R2Â 936 for every kilogram of gold, Barker told the unions.
At 1.20pm, the rand per kilogram price of gold was quoted at R94Â 249 per kilogram, its highest level since January 2004, according to I-Net Bridge data.
The current problems were the strong rand and costs, which have increased by 10% over the past two years, Barker told the unions.
The Chamber did not make a formal offer to Solidarity, UASA or the NUM on Tuesday, which was quite usual, Solidarity spokesperson Reint Dykema said.
“The Chamber of Mines’ presentation today was a big disappointment. A dark picture was sketched. Solidarity has already, over the past two years, said to the chamber that the gold mining sector was in crisis and called for a crisis
meeting to address the problems,” said Solidarity Mining representative Andre van der Merwe.
“The chamber is using the fact that that more than 40Â 000 mine workers have lost work over the past two years as a trump card or bargaining chip and that is something Solidarity doesn’t like,” he added. – I-Net Bridge