THE last of a wave of illegal strikes that have swept South Africa's mining sector ended yesterday after workers accepted an offer from Anglo American Platinum.
South Africa's platinum and gold sectors have been rocked for months by often wildcat action, spawned by income disparities and a union turf war for members, and more conflict could be sparked by looming job cuts and wage talks next year.
The labour unrest has rattled investors in the continent's largest economy and has claimed the lives of more than 50 people, including 34 shot dead by police in one incident in mid-August near a mine operated by platinum producer Lonmin.
"All the workers are returning to work," said Evans Ramokga, a strike leader at Amplats, a unit of Anglo American.
The firm has offered either an additional monthly allowance of 600 rand (£42) or a monthly salary increase of 400 rand, as well as a one-off 4500 rand.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article