200,000 Blacks Strike at Mines in South Africa

More than 200,000 black miners went on strike at 46 of South Africa’s gold and coal mines Sunday night to support their demands for a 30% pay increase and demonstrate the growing political and economic power of the country’s black labor unions, labor leaders reported.

The strike, the biggest test of strength yet between the National Union of Mineworkers and the South African Chamber of Mines, began as most workers on the overnight shift at 28 gold and 18 coal mines reportedly did not go to work. A union spokesman said that the struck mines would be completely shut by this morning.

As many as 100,000 more miners are expected to join the strike at perhaps 30 other mines where the five-year-old union has not yet won management recognition.

Long Strike Expected

James Motlatsi, president of the 320,000-member union, predicted that the strike could be long and bitter, if the union is to achieve its wage demands and to win industrywide recognition.

“We should be prepared to spend a long time on strike until we have won our demands,” he told 3,000 miners at a rally near Kinross, a mining center 65 miles southeast of Johannesburg. “We must be prepared to stay out even as long as 12 months. We must not be discouraged. We must be prepared to fight the chamber for what belongs to us.”

Johan Liebenberg, the Chamber of Mines negotiator, said he expects the strike to last two to five days at most. He warned that employers might begin firing the miners, as permitted by South Africa’s labor laws, if the strike continued any longer.

While union officials said the strike had begun as planned, company spokesmen maintained that most miners on the overnight shift had reported for work; only the giant Anglo American Corp. acknowledged “a varying degree of strike action” at a number of its mines.

A lengthy strike would seriously affect the whole South African economy. Last year, the country’s 51 gold mines produced 640 tons of gold, worth $9 billion and more than half of its foreign exchange earnings. The 56 coal mines produce most of the fuel for South Africa’s electric power stations as well as large quantities of coal for export.

The strike, if prolonged, would also pose a political challenge to the government of President Pieter W. Botha. After permitting black workers to form trade unions and bargain collectively, the government has become increasingly uneasy over their growing power and their willingness to use it for political goals.

“This is the big one,” Cyril Ramaphosa, the mineworkers’ general secretary, said. “If we win this strike, it is going to be a significant motivation for all other workers to continue with their own struggle for a living wage. If we lose, it will have a devastating effect.”

Union Holds Out for More

The Chamber of Mines, which groups South Africa’s major mining companies, offered--and then unilaterally implemented--pay increases of 17% to 23%, bringing the average black miner’s wages to about $253 a month. The union is holding out for a 30% increase as well as danger pay and additional paid vacation. Negotiations broke down last month with each side accusing the other of refusing to bargain in good faith.

“What we have already given is all that there is,” Liebenberg said, declaring that the companies were resolved not to buckle under strike pressure.

But Ramaphosa said that management’s “patronizing and arrogant” attitude toward the union was now as much of an issue as wages. “We will continue this strike for as long as it takes to make them resume negotiations,” he vowed. “They will pay for their arrogance.”

Tens of thousands of the miners are expected to leave their hostels at the mine compounds on Monday and Tuesday and return home. The union, saying that it feared violence by the police and the mines’ own security forces, announced plans to arrange transport home for miners wherever tensions rise. Dozens of miners died in clashes during smaller strikes in 1984 and 1985.

Attempt to Avert Violence

“We have given these instructions to our members for fear of losing their lives, being starved to death or being attacked by security forces,” Ramaphosa said. “The only way we feel we can have a peaceful strike is if the workers go home.”

Ramaphosa said the union had earlier sought guarantees from the Chamber of Mines that the mining companies would not use their security personnel or police to try to crush the strike, but they received no assurances. He said the companies had also not responded to a union demand that they not cut off food, water and other utilities to miners remaining in the hostels.

The 712,000-member Congress of South African Trade Unions, a predominantly black labor federation to which the mineworkers belong, has promised to back the miners and threatened a general strike if violence erupts on the mines.

But the companies, concerned about the difficulties of restarting production if their workers are scattered, urged the miners to remain at the hostels and, if they wished, to continue working despite the strike call.

‘Strikes Benefit Nobody’

“Management has pledged to take every possible step to prevent violence in order to allow workers to choose to work or to strike peacefully,” said E. P. Gush, the head of Anglo American’s gold mines. “Workers should stay at the mines and at work.

“Instead of leaving, they should urge the union to accept the 1987 wage award. In the past, significant benefits have been achieved through negotiations. The union should continue this process to achieve further benefits. . . . Strikes benefit nobody.”

But the miners’ defiant mood was clearly evident at Kinross where “freedom songs” and anti-government chants were as much a part of the rally as union leaders’ calls for unity, discipline and strength throughout the strike.

“Viva ANC!” the miners chanted, referring to the outlawed African National Congress, which is fighting to end white domination. “Tambo will return,” they sang in a freedom song that envisions not only the return of ANC President Oliver Tambo, who has been in exile for a quarter century, but the overthrow of South Africa’s minority white government.

Times researcher Michael Cadman contributed to this report from Kinross.