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1 November, 2010
The month-long strike by 1,300 members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) of South Africa at the Mototolo platinum mine expanded last week, when another 940 miners took sympathies actions at three related enterprises. Mototolo is a joint venture created in 2005 by Swiss mining company Xstrata and AngloPlatinum.
Workers at Xstrata’s Thorncliffe chrome mine, the Mototola concentrator plant, and Xstrata’s Lydenburg ferrochrome plant took industrial actions on 27 October in support for NUM Mototola miners. Their strike began on 29 September over wage differences.
The NUM is seeking salary adjustment between 10% and 14%, while mine management is offering less. The NUM is seeking 14% for miners categorized in the A3 class, or lower paid workers, while it seeks 11% for the A4 category, and 10% for categories B1 to B5.
NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni
Management has proposed an increase of 13% for the A3 category workers. “There is no turning back, the company has to deliver” what the miners demand, stated NUM Regional Secretary Makgabo Mabapa for the North East Region.
The mine and related processing facilities are located on the eastern limb of the Bushveld complex, near Steelpoort in Mpumalanga province. Xstrata manages the mine and AngloPlatinum manages the concentrator.
Meanwhile, the NUM is investigating the loss of three lives in industrial accidents last week. Early on 27 October, a miner employed at a platinum mine owned by Royal Bafokeng Holdings in Rustenburg, a BEE company, was killed in a winch-related accident. Two days earlier, a worker at Rustenburg’s Ocon Brick Manufacturing, wholly-owned by the mining contractor Murray & Roberts Holdings, was killed in the workplace when the vehicle he was operating slid off a berm, overturned and fell on top of him. And on the same day, a worker at Copper Slate Pty., another mining contractor, died from a fall from an unsafe vehicle. That accident happened in Swarttuggens near Rustenburg.
“The bloodletting has to stop and it must stop now,” said NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni. “If it does not stop, then someone must be held accountable.