Striking Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) mineworkers demanded pay of R16,070 a month at a meeting at the Blesbok stadium in Rustenburg on Thursday.<\/p>\n
This was according to Gaddafi Ndoda, who described himself as a member of a newly formed workers’ committee.<\/p>\n
“To us, R12,500 is just a basic salary,” he said, referring to the amount raised as a demand among many mineworkers over the past weeks.<\/p>\n
“Anglo is the most-paying (sic) mine in the country, so our demand is different from other mineworkers,” said Ndoda.<\/p>\n
He said they wanted “nothing to do” with AngloPlats’ Mageu beverage, and wanted their refreshment allowance to be R30 a day.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday workers there complained about the quality of the Mageu, an energy drink made from fermented grains.<\/p>\n
He said currently workers were not entitled to a safety and transport allowance.<\/p>\n
“We want our transport allowance to be R60 daily and [our] safety allowance to be R1500.”<\/p>\n
They also wanted the increase in their living-out allowance to be R2000 — up from R1700.<\/p>\n
An “executive committee” of six members representing workers outside formal union forums had been formed and they were expected to take a memorandum to the mine’s management in Klipfontein near the stadium, he said.<\/p>\n
While heading towards the nearby offices, about half the workers who had been in the stadium accompanied the committee, singing and dancing, amid tight security.<\/p>\n
As in the past week, the police had Nyalas stationed in the area and a helicopter overhead. Amplats security vehicles and security guards were also on alert, and a Netcare911 ambulance was on standby.<\/p>\n
Workers carried knobkerries, sticks and whips. Some also carried umbrellas.<\/p>\n
It appeared that a group of striking workers from Lonmin Platinum did not join them as hoped.<\/p>\n
Amplats said it suspended operations on Wednesday out of concern for the safety of its employees, and said there was no strike at the mine.<\/p>\n
CEO Chris Griffith said the situation in the Rustenburg area was volatile, and that people who wanted to go to work could not because of threats of violence.<\/p>\n
“Anglo American Platinum has decided to suspend its operations in the Rustenburg area with immediate effect,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“The suspension will continue until such time as operations can be safely resumed.”<\/p>\n
Amplats’ chairwoman Cynthia Carroll said the company was in touch with authorities “at the highest level” to identify ways of working with government and the recognised labour unions to achieve a swift and peaceful resolution.<\/p>\n
She said the company’s Rustenburg platinum operations were already under financial pressure, and the suspension of operations on Wednesday risked their long-term viability, the longer the situation lasted.<\/p>\n
A strike at Lonmin entered its second month this week. Workers at Gold Fields’ KDC West mine were also on strike on Thursday. – Sapa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Striking Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) mineworkers demanded pay of R16,070 a month at a meeting at the Blesbok stadium in Rustenburg on Thursday. This was according to Gaddafi Ndoda, who described himself as a member of a newly formed workers’ committee. “To us, R12,500 is just a basic salary,” he said, referring to the amount … Continue reading “Amplats miners striking for R16 070 per month”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[1106,1119,768,490,243],"class_list":["post-1559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-amplats","tag-gaddafi-ndoda","tag-lonmin","tag-rustenburg","tag-strike"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1559"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1561,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions\/1561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}