More than 200 000 gold miners who began striking on July 28 have added to what economists call the most serious labour strikes the country has experienced in years.
Whereas members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in the diamond and coal industries downed tools last week over wage disputes with the Chamber of Mines, workers in the gold industry stopped working from the evening shift on Thursday.
Members of the NUM, the United Association of South Africa and Solidarity want a 14% wage increase but companies are offering from 7% to 9%. The companies affected are AngloGold Ashanti, Goldfields, Harmony and Rand Uranium.
“Gold is at its highest price ever,” said NUM spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka. “The gold price is at a record high of about $1 650 an ounce and executives are raking in, on average, R16-million a year.
“Employers are self-centred and thinking only about themselves. Our demands are not astronomical. The average salary for a gold miner is R3 800 a month. Some of them work 14 hours, seven days a week, in temperatures underground that are extremely high. The bulk of the workers are migrant workers. How can they pay them R3 800 a month?”
Gold-mine worker Bongile Ndongeni said he earned R4 500 a month.
“The prices of food are always going up and the cost of living is too high. I can’t survive with this salary. There are too many days when my family goes to bed hungry. In our culture I don’t just look after my wife and my children, I also look after my cousins and my wife’s family.”
But Elize Strydom, chief negotiator for the Chamber of Mines, said: “The industry can’t even contemplate a 14% increase. The wage increase is just one of about 50 other demands. In total they are asking for an increase in labour costs of 25%.”
The gold strike will bring the number of days the economy has lost because of labour protests to more than 30 this year.
The strike by workers in the petroleum industry came to an end when unions reached an agreement with employers on Thursday afternoon. Fuel workers and other members of the Chemical Energy Paper Printing Wood and Allied Workers’ Union (Ceppwawu) and the General Industries Workers’ Union of South Africa accepted an 8.5% wage increase, after demanding a 13% increase across the board and a minimum wage of R6 000.
The nationwide strike began on July 11 and saw hundreds of petrol stations run dry as approximately 70 000 workers left their posts.
“It’s not what we set out to achieve but it’s a reasonable conclusion seeing as though the employers were offering only 7%,” John Appolis, Ceppwawu’s national policy coordinator, told the Mail & Guardian.
Labour economist Andrew Levy said: “The strikes happening now are much more serious and intense than usual. It seems largely that the difficulty lies in the inflexibility of the unions around the bargaining tables. They appear absolutely intent on declaring a dispute. Agreements could have been reached without them having to go on strike.”
Levy said the strikes could be part of a broader focus on rebuilding shop-floor power, but that the way it was being done was not necessarily viable.
“Can the economy bear the settlement levels that are being demanded? The answer is no.”
Strike fever has once again hit South Africa. For more news click here.
