JOHANNESBURG -- Metalworkers at the South African operations of
Anglo American Platinum are to strike over pay, the country's
largest trade union said Sunday.
Between 1,000 and 2,000 Amplats metalworkers will put down their
tools Monday, the union said, adding to the woes of the world's top
producer of the precious metal whose South African miners are
already on strike.
"The strike will start tomorrow," said Irvin Jim, general
secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South
Africa.
NUMSA is demanding double-digit pay increases and a doubling of
the salaries of the lowest-paid workers to 2,500 rand ($225), Mr.
Jim said.
It also wants improved accommodation and transport for the
metalworkers, double pay on holidays and an end to the practice of
conducting body searches at the end of a shift.
Amplats, which will release its results Monday, already has been
hard hit by a platinum-miners strike that also affects rival firms
Implats and Lonmin.
Negotiations between the three major platinum mine owners and
the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) are
expected to resume Tuesday.
The chief executives of the three platinum producers this week
raised the spectre of restructuring and layoffs if the strike
persisted.
"Prolonged strike action will result in more losses, and further
fundamental restructuring and, inevitably, this will have an impact
on jobs and indeed the economy," they said in a joint
statement.
The miners are demanding a base monthly salary of 12,500 rands
($1,150), about double their current pay.
It is the same demand that spurred strikes in 2012 that turned
violent and resulted in the police shooting dead 34 miners on one
day.