South Africa’s gold miners join coal and diamond miners on strike
July 26, 2011 by goldguru · Leave a Comment
GATA
By Christopher Donville
Bloomberg News
via Bloomberg Business Week
Monday, July 25, 2011
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-07-25/south-african-gold-miners-to…
More than 200,000 South African gold miners will join coal and diamond mine workers in a strike this week after failing to reach agreement with producers over pay, the country’s National Union of Mineworkers said.
The gold miners are demanding pay increases of 14 percent, the union said today in a statement. Johannesburg-based AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. offered workers 8 percent to 9 percent, the union said. Harmony Gold Mining Co. Ltd. and Rand Uranium Pty Ltd. offered 7 percent to 8.5 percent, it said.
“We are disappointed by the decision taken by the unions,” Elize Strydom, who negotiated on behalf of the gold producers, said in an e-mailed statement from the Chamber of Mines of South Africa, which represents the industry. “The employers are, however, more than willing to continue to engage with the unions in an attempt to reach settlement.”
The gold miners will join 150,000 coal workers and 5,000 diamond workers in South Africa already on strike, the union said. Protests by South African petroleum, chemical, engineering, gold, and platinum workers have curbed output from factories and mines and interrupted fuel deliveries.
South African workers won average pay raises of 5.2 percentage points over the inflation rate last year and 3.2 percent in 2009, more than in Brazil, the United States, or any country in the European Union except for Bulgaria. The country’s inflation rate is 5 percent.
South Africa was the world’s fifth-largest gold producer in 2010, according to researcher GFMS Ltd. China was the biggest.
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