South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Tuesday it had been given the go-ahead by authorities to stage a one-day nationwide strike on December 4 to highlight the issue of safety at mines.
”Yes, we are going on strike on December 4, we have been given the go-ahead,” NUM spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka told Reuters.
Seshoka said more than 240 000 mine workers are expected to down tools in what will be the first strike over safety issues in the world’s biggest producer of platinum and gold. Diamond and coal producers would also be among this to be affected.
The permit for the strike was granted by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), which met on Tuesday morning with the NUM and the Chamber of Mines, an umbrella body that represents big mining companies.
A series of deaths in South Africa’s mines, some of which are the world’s deepest, has set the NUM and mining firms on a collision course.
More than 180 workers have been killed this year in rockfalls, explosions or buried underground during earth tremors in mines owned by some of the world’s biggest mining firms.
About 200 workers were killed in mines last year.
Seshoka said the strike would hit gold producers AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony and the world’s top two platinum producers Anglo Platinum, which is majority-owned by Anglo-American, and Impala Platinum, all of which have had accidents or deaths at their mines in recent weeks.
Others that would see their output crippled by the strike would be coal producer Exxaro and diamond producer De Beers, he said. — Reuters