Strikers at a Northam Platinum mine met yesterday after their latest round of talks with the company to decide whether to continue their week-long wildcat stoppage, a union spokesman said.
About 5000 members of the National Union of Mineworkers stopped work on Tuesday last week at the company's Zondereinde mine, its biggest, demanding the removal of CEO Paul Dunne for what the workers said were unfair hiring and firing practices.
"Our members are being briefed on the outcome of the talks between our negotiators and the company and will then take a vote," Livhuwani Mammburu, a spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers, said.
A union source had earlier said there was "little progress" in the talks.
Northam stopped operations at the mine, which produces 65% of its output, on Friday because of what it called "rising levels of intimidation" against non-strikers and assaults that were related to the work stoppage.
The mine produces 900oz to 1000oz of platinum a day.
An industry source said non-striking members of the NUM's archrival, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, had at the weekend been removed from mine hostels to keep the two sides separated to defuse tensions.
Amcu has "poached" thousands of NUM members over the past three years in a brutal turf war that has killed scores of miners.
The NUM, the majority union at Northam, has long complained about Amcu embarking on wildcat strikes and then intimidating NUM members into joining the strike.
Amcu treasurer Jimmy Gama said the union's members at Northam were assaulted and had their hostel rooms vandalised because NUM wanted to ward off Amcu at Northam.
"They are afraid to lose members at the mine and they are now resorting to violence," he said.
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