* Implats makes offer to avert another strike
* Amplats talks tough, may start firing illegal strikers
* Heavy police presence at Rustenburg
* About 75,000 S.Africa miners off the job
By Agnieszka Flak
RUSTENBURG, South Africa, Sept 27 (Reuters) – The world’s
top platinum producer, Anglo American Platinum, began
disciplinary action against illegal strikers on Thursday and
rival Impala Platinum offered workers a pay rise as the South
African mining industry struggles to end weeks of labour unrest.
A wave of wildcat strikes is disrupting South Africa’s
mining sector despite the end of an illegal six-week stoppage at
another platinum producer, Lonmin , in which 46
people were killed.
In a bid to avert a strike, Impala Platinum offered a “pay
adjustment” to workers demanding an increase, saying it would
add almost five percent to its wage bill.
An illegal stoppage at Implats would have brought the labour
unrest full circle this year as its Rustenburg operation, the
world’s largest platinum mine, was brought to a halt for 6 weeks
in January and February amid a bloody union turf war between the
militant Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union
(AMCU) and the dominant National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
Continued…
