Security guards shot at employees with rubber bullets, hitting two people, said Sibonile Dube, a Johannesburg-based spokesperson for the chemicals company, in an email on Tuesday. Two guards were hit by stones thrown by the workers who have been on a wildcat strike since May 16, she said. Three other employees were hurt.
"Our security guards were acting in self-defence as the strikers started throwing stones at them," Dube said.
Mining companies in South Africa, which has the world's biggest known reserves of chrome and platinum, are bracing for wage talks, with one union demanding increases of as much as 61%. The local chrome operation of Lanxess, a Leverkusen, Germany-based synthetic rubber maker and chemicals company, is in Rustenburg, where platinum producers are contending with union rivalry and where 44 people were killed in unrest last year.
About 470 workers at Lanxess's local unit started an unprotected strike last week, demanding annual performance-related payments in addition to an existing wage agreement.
Employees in South Africa may strike legally, with their jobs protected, if an independent mediator agrees to a stoppage and after talks between unions and companies fail. – Bloomberg