S. African Miners Reject Offer, Will Continue Strike

The National Union of Mineworkers voted today to continue a 17-day-old strike, rejecting an offer by the top mining companies that slightly improved benefits but not wages.

A grim-faced union General-Secretary Cyril Ramaphosa read a statement prepared by union leaders at a two-hour meeting that followed daylong voting by thousands of black miners on the offer from the Chamber of Mines, which represents the top mining companies.

“The telex that we transmitted to the chamber was to inform them that our entire membership on the striking mines has decided not to accept the chamber’s offer,” Ramaphosa said.

Hundreds of thousands of miners voted by show of hands in hostels and union halls in South Africa’s longest and costliest mine strike.

“The reaction of the workers has shown that they are rejecting the offer,” National Union of Mineworkers President James Motlatsi had said earlier in an interview in western Transvaal province. “The ball is in the chamber’s court.”

The management offer would have slightly improved death benefits and holiday pay, but it did not address the union’s demand for a 30% wage hike, the main reason the strike was called.

Ramaphosa said union leadership did not recommend approval or rejection of the offer.

The union planned to reply tonight to the management offer.

Union officials say 340,000 miners are on strike at 45 gold and coal mines in the biggest legal walkout in the country’s history. The chamber puts the number of strikers at 210,000 at 29 mines.

Representatives of the union and the chamber met for four hours Tuesday in the first contract negotiations since the strike began Aug. 9.

“The union negotiating team is clearly not happy that the issue of wages were not discussed,” Ramaphosa told a news conference Tuesday night.