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South Africa’s unions have rejected the final pay offer made yesterday by the Chamber of Mines on behalf of the country’s gold mining sector, raising the prospect of widened strikes in Africa’s largest, but struggling economy.
The body, which represents the country’s main gold producers, such as AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE: AU) (ASX: AGG), and Gold Fields (NYSE: GFI), responded to workers demands late Tuesday with a 6.5% pay raise offer.
But the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) discarded the proposal, calling it “a joke,” reports local news agency Sapa.
“They are being ridiculous,” NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka was quoted as saying. “Six percent for someone who is earning R5000 [US$ 480] a month is R300 [$29]. It’s nonsense.”
He did not comment on what would happen next, since union members earlier threatened strikes if their 60% increase demands were not met.
The chamber warned that the sector “remains in a perilous financial position, and can ill-afford further increases or indeed industrial action.”
“We need a sustainable agreement that will preserve our mines, and consequently jobs,” said the Chamber’s chief negotiator Elize Strydom in a statement.
The government has called on the workers to ensure all strikes are peaceful, as labour disputes last year claimed up to 50 lives at South Africa’s platinum mines.
Image by Name News Network via Flickr Commons
3 Comments
Koos
No strike has ever come to a positive conclusion. Someone out there please help these people???? All of us want more income and want this and want that, but has anyone of these people ever thought of how this very idiotic move of bringing the country to a stand still will effect the country ? No, they will never know ’cause they are in their own little bubble of “we will have” and “we will get”. Let me tell you something, you won’t get 60% increase. NEVER in this lifetime will you see it happen. You are going to strike wanting to earn more than what you are earning now, and wait and see how all commodities will increase in the coming months BECAUSE OF YOU STRIKING!!!. You are doing worse to this country by striking. Lower your cost of living and cut down on your luxuries, then things might start looking better. As soon as “you” start facing the reality of the whole worlds dilemma of a current bad economy, you will realize that we all are stuck in the same rut.
ZIM here we come i say !!!!!!!!!!!
Sven
I say keep striking and know your part in the great wheel of life. Take the gold off the market and eventually EVERYONE pays. If they’re patient enough they’ll get their raise, much gold will come off the market and years down the road people will look at Wall Street and the City and say, “what were you guys thinking April 12th 2013?
I know people are suffering but part of me is laughing inside at the insane place we have come to in the world.
djvol
It is easy to leave out the portion that the worker earning R5000 per month does not have training, is probably illiterate and has a entry level position. He receives allowances on top of this salary depending on his work area as well as production bonuses – which still gets paid even if targets are not met. A massive salary where most with whom I have dealt with is not doing what they get paid for and apart from postponing menial tasks take pride of the fact that they are probably the laziest bunch of workers in the universe.
The entry level positions in South African mining is getting salaries that count in multiples of their counterparts in the private and really working sector.
They however will continue listening to union leaders that does not care about the country and work to ensure their own riches grow to ridiculous levels. a bunch of spoilt brats