Wage talks in the gold-mining sector this week between the Chamber of Mines and unions could not be more important, both for the industry and the broader economy. Although violence has been notably absent in the gold sector, there are some parallels with events on the platinum belt more than 18 months ago, when negotiations broke down, leading to a crippling five-month strike that shaved billions of rands from our GDP.Intense rivalry between major unions the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the upstart Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) complicated wage negotiations in the platinum sector and the same is happening now in the gold-mining industry.As in the platinum talks, in which Amcu, the dominant union in the sector, demanded a monthly wage of R12 500, rivalry between it and the NUM on the goldfields has led to salary-hike demands ranging from 80% to more than 100%.A proposal by the Chamber of Mines for a social compact with gold miners, including a profit-sharing scheme that would benefit workers when the gold price went up - but would entail them ''sharing the pain'' when it dropped - has been given short shrift by the two unions.But the reality is that the unions' demands are simply not affordable. Gold mining here has been in the doldrums for decades. The country now produces only about 6% of the world's gold, from 64% in 1983, because of the increasingly prohibitive costs of deep-level mining, high labour and electricity costs, and intense competition from abroad.Though gold's contribution to our GDP has declined to only 2%, the sector remains critical to the broader economy, secondary industries and local mining communities.It is to be hoped that the unions adopt a more pragmatic attitude during the talks - if only for the sake of the 130 000 workers who continue to make a living from the gold mines...