 Gold strike looms Mineworkers say they will make the economy ‘cry like a baby’ Tomorrow morning, more than 250000 workers in the influential gold sector will join the hundreds of thousands of employees already on strike countrywide. The gold miners say their strike will "hurt the economy and cause it to cry like a baby". Gold miners will join about 150000 colleagues in the coal sector who downed tools on Sunday following a breakdown in talks between the National Union of Mineworkers and the Chamber of Mines. Economists fear a prolonged strike in the coal sector might affect Eskom and threaten electricity supply. The gold strike is expected to cripple exports and prevent mining companies benefiting from high gold prices, which are expected to hit record highs in a few days. Referring to the breakdown in talks between NUM and the chamber, union spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said yesterday: "We could not achieve a settlement last night. We wrote a 48-hour notice for a strike on Thursday. Gold miners will down tools indefinitely until gold itself cries. "We are demanding an increment of about 14%, but the employer is giving us 7%. You can see for yourself that the economy will cry like a baby." Major players that will take a knock include AngloGold Ashanti, Harmony Gold and Gold Fields, while the coal sector includes Exxaro and Anglo Coal. Yesterday, the chamber met NUM to continue negotiations relating to the coal sector. Both parties declined to comment on the meeting, except to say the strike continued. They would resume negotiations. Regarding the looming gold strike, Harmony CEO Graham Briggs said: "We have made a reasonable offer to the trade unions, which has been rejected. We are now preparing for a possible strike. This means that operations will be closed, assets will be secured and measures will be taken to ensure that expenditure is kept to a minimum." AngloGold Ashanti spokesman Alan Fine said he hoped the next few days of negotiations would yield results. "We really want to avoid the strike," he said, declining to comment on how the industrial action might affect operations. "Let's wait and see." Economist Dawie Roodt said a strike in the gold sector would not have a significant impact on the economy. "If you stop working for a week or two it is fairly easy to catch up with production. It will be disruptive to the particular mines, but not the economy. It's bad, but it wouldn't disrupt the economy," he said. Chris Hart, an economist with Investment Solutions, agreed, saying the action would be felt within the gold-mining industry but not in the broad economy. However, both economists said a protracted coal strike could be extremely disruptive for the economy. "The coal sector is important for electricity-generation," said Hart. "However, Eskom says there are enough contingency supplies. It says it has 38 days' worth of coal supplies." Roodt said: "If [the coal strike] goes for three to four weeks, we will all pay a huge price as we will not have electricity." In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of workers across the country have downed tools during mid-year bargaining known as the "strike season". Workers are demanding double-digit pay rises; many employers are offering between 7% and 9%. The petroleum and pharmaceutical workers' strike is in its third week, and 6000 employees from the industry are expected to march to Sasol's head office in Rosebank, Johannesburg. -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . |
