Implats handled increase badly: Vavi

An 18% pay rise offered to some miners at Impala Platinum's Rustenburg operation was badly handled, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Tuesday.

"You [Impala] have handled the issue very badly. We cannot support you," he said to the applause of the workers at the mine, near Rustenburg.

Vavi said the mine made a mistake by increasing the salary of miners while omitting rock-drillers.

"Rock-drillers are working harder than anyone else in the mining industry."

Vavi told workers the mine had explained it was necessary to increase salaries to retain miners.

"If they gave an increase to anyone they had to give the same increase to all."

He said he wanted the mine to re-hire all dismissed workers with the same benefits they had before the strike. Vavi was accompanied by National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) president Senzeni Zokwana and Rustenburg mayor Npho Khonou.

Zokwana told workers the NUM agreed with them and that their pay needed to be increased. Workers booed every time the NUM was mentioned. On Saturday the NUM urged strikers to return to work.

NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said the union met Implats management on Friday in an attempt to resolve the impasse.

Implats agreed to re-employ 17 000 workers who had been dismissed for striking illegally. The union said if Implats failed to meet its commitments when all workers returned to work, it would call a general strike at the company's operations.

Rock drillers at the mine embarked on an illegal strike in January after they did not get an increase. About 5 000 of them were dismissed. They then began protesting, intimidating and assaulting people trying to get to and from work in the Freedom Park township outside Rustenburg.

The rest of the mine's 17 000 workers were dismissed on January 30 for not being at work.

Protesters then started barricading roads to Freedom Park, stoning cars and looting shops. They torched a satellite police station in the area.

A miner was shot dead and at least seven people were injured in overnight violence linked to the dispute, police said on Monday.

This was the second death related to the labour dispute. Last week a man was found dead at a workers' hostel. Seven people were injured on Sunday night in a clash between police and a group of people trying to damage a mine shaft.

Impala Platinum said there were no incidents during Monday evening, due to the large number of police officers present.