35,000 Black Miners Stay Off Job in South Africa Dispute Over Pay

About 35,000 black miners stayed off the job Monday at three gold mines whose owners refused to go along with pay increases of up to 23% awarded to workers in an industry settlement, a union spokesman said.

It was the third time since 1984--when black miners won the right to strike--that miners have attempted to force wage increases by means of legal walkouts.

National Union of Mineworkers spokesman Marcel Golding said the strike began late Sunday at three of six mines owned by the Goldfields Group. A company spokesman confirmed the walkout but put the number of strikers at 25,000.

Tear Gas, Rubber Bullets

Plans to strike at three other mines were postponed when police and mine security guards fired tear gas and rubber bullets to break up strike meetings and used whips to force miners into the shafts, Golding charged.

Attie Roest, a spokesman for Goldfields, said the police were not called, but he confirmed that tear gas and rubber bullets were fired to protect workers who wanted to enter the mineshafts.

The walkout was triggered by the refusal of Goldfields and the Rand Mines Group to accept a wage increase settlement between the union and the Chamber of Mines employers’ federation.

Union leaders met with chamber officials Monday night in an effort to persuade Goldfields to accept the 23% pay increase, Golding said.

Goldfields said in a statement: “Employee representatives have been in contact with the mine management. . . . Their demands, which are wage-related, are being considered.”

Agreement Provisions

The agreement gave underground workers increases of between 19.5% and 22.5% and surface workers raises of between 22.8% and 23.5% on wages of around $180 a month.

Union members staged their first legal strike in September, 1984. Nearly 20 miners died in clashes with police as about 64,000 men walked off the job. The strike was called off within hours.

The union represents 500,000 black miners at 18 gold mines and 11 coal mines affiliated with the Chamber of Mines.

Meanwhile, mine officials in Johannesburg said the bodies of three of six miners killed in an elevator shaft accident Sunday have been recovered.

In Soweto, the black township on the outskirts of Johannesburg, hundreds of students, despite heavy security precautions, failed to take final high school examinations because of intimidation by militant youths, witnesses said.

Black militants have urged students to boycott classes to protest what they call inferior education for blacks under the government’s apartheid policies.