Strike could ruin Rustenburg

The strike that is doing "irreparable" harm to the platinum mining industry and the communities that the mines support could drag on for another month, increasingly endangering the future of the Rustenburg area.

Platinum mining companies Anglo Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin claim they have lost more than R10-billion in revenue in the past nine weeks.

"Mines and shafts are becoming unviable, people are hungry, children are not going to school, businesses are closing and crime in the platinum belt is increasing," said Amplats CEO Chris Griffith, Impala's Terence Goodlace and Lonmin's Ben Magara in a joint statement.

But Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union president Joseph Mathunjwa is unfazed.

Mathunjwa told The Times yesterday that his members were "still standing strong".

Negotiations have stalled, with the mining companies saying that Amcu's demand for an entry-level wage of R12500 a month is unaffordable. As many as 70000 employees of the three companies have downed tools in a bid to more than double their salaries.

Mathunjwa said that his members want to see a significant wage increase this year, but that the companies have until 2017 to reach the R12500 target.

Amplats management said earlier this year that the future of platinum mining was no longer in Rustenburg but at the more mechanised mines in Limpopo.

"The extended strike on the platinum belt is unprecedented and at a stage at which some of its effects are becoming irreparable," said the three CEOs.

But even the tacit threat of moving mining operations elsewhere is not shaking Mathunjwa.

"If they go to Limpopo, they will find Amcu waiting there for them," he said.

Labour analyst Andrew Levy told The Times that the strike will start to falter only once employees start feeling the pain of not having been paid for three months.

The platinum companies claim that employees had lost more than R4.5-billion in wages by this morning. Despite this, Levy believes the strike could drag on for another three or four weeks.

Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant's spokesman, Musa Zondi, yesterday called the strike a "zero sum game" and said that "something eventually has to give".

"There isn't anything in the law that would get these people to talk," he said, referring to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration's failed intervention.

He said that the Labour Department was trying to make Mathunjwa listen to reason but the union leader believed the department is "out to get him" .

Said Levy: "Sooner or later the workers get tired of not having stability in their pay packet. When the strike started, many migrant workers went back to Eastern Cape or Mozambique. Once they return to work, the strike will break up."