* Pay deal stirs up other workers
* Lonmin workers celebrate “death of NUM”
* Zuma “relieved” but still under pressure
By Sherilee Lakmidas
MARIKANA, South Africa, Sept 19 (Reuters) – South African
police fired tear gas and rubber bullets on Wednesday to
disperse protesters near a mine run by the world’s biggest
platinum producer Anglo American Platinum, as unrest
spread after strikers at rival Lonmin won big pay rises.
Within hours of Lonmin agreeing pay rises
of up to 22 percent, workers at nearby mines called for similar
raises, spelling more trouble after six weeks of industrial
action that claimed 45 lives and rocked South Africa’s economy.
“We want management to meet us as well now,” an organiser
for the militant Association of Mineworkers and Construction
Union (AMCU) at Impala Platinum, the second biggest
platinum producer, told Reuters.
“We want 9,000 rand ($1,100) a month as a basic wage instead
of the roughly 5,000 rand we are getting,” said the organiser,
who declined to be named fearing recriminations from the firm.
Jubilant workers at Lonmin’s Marikana mine, 100 km (60
miles) northwest of Johannesburg, painted the deal as a victory
for AMCU over the dominant National Union of Mineworkers (NUM),
an ally of the ruling African National Congress.
Continued…
