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Mine strike a costly power game - expert

Cape Town - If the threatened mining strike goes ahead it will probably be the most costly strike in the country’s history, but the main victims will be the workers, according to Michael Bagraim of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“The mines will have little option but to close down and enforce a lockout to avoid the destruction of property and violence," he said.

"This will leave the workers without any income and, as we have seen in other strikes, the loan sharks will be circling.”

Bagraim, who heads the Chamber’s human resources portfolio committee, said it was clear that the workers were pawns in a power struggle between unions and factions within unions.

“When unions demand increases of 60% and 150% then it is clear this is not about industrial relations. Something else is going on.”

The Chamber’s executive director, Viola Manuel, pointed out that the threatened strike in the clothing industry had been averted because reason had prevailed.

“The demands made and offers by the employers were typical of healthy industrial relations bargaining," she said.

"When both parties are realistic there is always a very good chance of a successful outcome.”

In the case of the mines, however, the parties were so far apart that only a long and bruising strike or lockout would bring them to within bargaining range.

The last mining strike cost the country about R6bn in tax revenue and this one will be twice as bad, according to Bagraim.

It will put enormous pressure on the government before an election and there will be a huge increase in tension between the partners in the ruling alliance. The cost to the economy will be enormous.
 
“In addition thousands of jobs will be destroyed forever because this will settle any argument about whether South Africa should continue with its present labour-intensive mining methods,” said Bagriam.

He said that one of the worst features of the strike was the way the unions have misled workers into believing that there was a prospect of their wages being doubled and more.

“That is just not realistic in a faltering economy with falling gold and platinum prices so one must question the motives,” he said.

"At the end of it all there would be some disillusioned workers and it was quite likely that they would turn on those who had used them in their power games."

- Fin24


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