* Gold Fields strike ends; 1,500 workers sacked
* Lonmin miners back to work after walkout over arrests
* Zuma promises to accelerate infrastructure plans
By Sherilee Lakmidas
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 19 (Reuters) – Miners ended a strike at
South African bullion producer Gold Fields on Friday,
while President Jacob Zuma pledged to speed up investment to
ease grievances fuelling the worst labour unrest since
apartheid.
But a month-long strike at Anglo American Platinum,
the world’s top producer of the precious metal, showed no sign
of ending. Workers were also still off the job at Harmony Gold’s
Kusasalethu mine.
With the government calling on miners to return to work,
companies have become emboldened to issue sacking ultimatums to
thousands of illegal strikers, a hard-ball negotiating tactic
that appears to be having some effect.
Gold Fields, the world’s No. 4 producer, said about 11,000
miners, threatened with dismissal unless they went back by
Thursday, had returned to work after a month-long stoppage at
its KDC West operations in Carletonville, 40 km (25 miles) west
of Johannesburg.
It sacked 1,500 miners who had not turned up for work at KDC
West and gave 8,500 workers on a wildcat strike at KDC East,
another part of the mine, until early next week to report, or
lose their jobs.
Continued…
