S. African Mine Owners Fire 16,200 : Another 33,000 Warned as Blacks Reject Their Offer

Mine owners fired 16,200 black miners today and threatened 33,000 other strikers with dismissal, a move that unions warned could trigger a general strike of all black workers.

The firings came after miners voted Wednesday to reject an offer by owners to improve vacation pay and death benefits, saying the concessions fell far short of their demands for a 27% wage increase. (Story, Page 8.)

South African trade unions warned that mass firings in the strike could result in a national strike by black workers. The strike entered its 18th day today and has crippled the country’s most important industry.

Test of Strength

“The mine owners have made it a test of strength and that is what it is going to be, and from our side we are determined to win it,” said Jay Naidoo, general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, which has 650,000 members.

“Black workers in this country have few weapons, but one of those weapons is withdrawal of labor,” he said. “A general strike is not a last resort, it is one of the weapons we have.”

Naidoo acknowledged that a nationwide strike by blacks would be illegal under a 14-month state of emergency.

The giant Anglo American Corp., which employs more than half the estimated 330,000 strikers, fired the 16,200 from six idled gold and coal shafts and marked 30,000 others for dismissal if they fail to report to work Friday.

‘A Number of Mines’

“We are processing dismissals at a number of mines,” Anglo American spokesman Paul Clothier said. “Strikers have deadlines to return to work tomorrow at a number of other mines.”

Anglo American, considered by labor analysts as the most progressive mining house, earlier cited “an urgent need to resume mining operations” amid speculation that the strike had already cost the company $100 million.

Clothier said among those fired were 3,000 strikers who staged an underground sit-in today in the world’s deepest mine, Western Deep Levels gold mine, where shafts go three miles into the earth.

The underground protest continued late today with no attempt to move the protesters, Clothier said.

Disciplinary Action

Up to 24,000 strikers employed by General Mining Corp. face unspecified disciplinary steps, spokesman Harry Hill said.

And another 3,000 strikers will be fired Friday if they fail to report to a mine owned by Johannesburg Consolidated Investments, said company spokesman Jeremy Nel.

“It is quite clear (that mine owners) have declared war on the union and are bent on destroying it,” Marcel Golding, deputy leader of the black National Union of Mineworkers, told reporters.