Striking SA miners get today's deadline
Source: Agencies |
August 21, 2012, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
LONMIN, the world's third-largest platinum miner, said workers on a wildcat strike at the Marikana mine in South Africa who fail to report for duty today could be fired.
"By 7am tomorrow (today) we expect workers to return to work. After that Lonmin has the right to fire them," Mark Munroe, Lonmin executive vice president for mining, told a news conference near the site 100 kilometers northwest of Johannesburg where about a third of workers returned for duty yesterday.
He was speaking alongside officials from the powerful National Union of Mineworkers but with no representative of the upstart Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union - seen as the driving force behind the wildcat strike by 3,000 rock drill operators. "Our priority is to return to normality. We are in consultations with the unions, NUM, which is the majority union at the mine."
Lonmin chief financial officer Simon Scott said the company had yet to receive any demands from the strikers and said the AMCU has not been part of the company's talks with workers.
Ten people died in clashes between NUM and AMCU supporters after the strike began on August 10, leading to the standoff last Thursday that ended with police gunning down a crowd of armed workers, killing 34 in the bloodiest day of protest since apartheid.
A quarter of the workforce - 27.3 percent - returned yesterday to work at the mine, which employs 28,000 people, Lonmin said.
Separately, more than 250 people began appearing in court near the mine to face charges, including murder, attempted murder and assault related to the deadliest security incident since the end of apartheid in 1994.
"By 7am tomorrow (today) we expect workers to return to work. After that Lonmin has the right to fire them," Mark Munroe, Lonmin executive vice president for mining, told a news conference near the site 100 kilometers northwest of Johannesburg where about a third of workers returned for duty yesterday.
He was speaking alongside officials from the powerful National Union of Mineworkers but with no representative of the upstart Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union - seen as the driving force behind the wildcat strike by 3,000 rock drill operators. "Our priority is to return to normality. We are in consultations with the unions, NUM, which is the majority union at the mine."
Lonmin chief financial officer Simon Scott said the company had yet to receive any demands from the strikers and said the AMCU has not been part of the company's talks with workers.
Ten people died in clashes between NUM and AMCU supporters after the strike began on August 10, leading to the standoff last Thursday that ended with police gunning down a crowd of armed workers, killing 34 in the bloodiest day of protest since apartheid.
A quarter of the workforce - 27.3 percent - returned yesterday to work at the mine, which employs 28,000 people, Lonmin said.
Separately, more than 250 people began appearing in court near the mine to face charges, including murder, attempted murder and assault related to the deadliest security incident since the end of apartheid in 1994.
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