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Marikana - About 1 000 stick-wielding strikers gathered outside Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine in South Africa on Wednesday, preventing workers from breaking the longest and costliest bout of industrial action the sector's history.
Some of the protesting strikers, clad in the green shirts of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), told Reuters they were there to block anyone from reaching the shafts.
The rival National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said its members are unable to return to work because of Amcu intimidation. Four people have been murdered around the platinum mines in the last four days although police have made no arrests.
"The miners cannot get to work because the intimidation is very high," Sydwell Dokolwana, NUM's regional secretary on the platinum belt, told Reuters.
London-listed Lonmin [JSE:LON] had been aiming for a "mass return" of workers in a bid to
end a crippling 16-week strike that has also hit rivals Anglo American
Platinum [JSE:AMS] and Impala Platinum [JSE:IMP].
North West police on Wednesday morning began escorting buses to mines on
the platinum belt as some striking miners returned to work.
A police spokesperson told the eNCA television channel that officers were out in force and were on hand to escort those who wished to return to the mine gates.
"Buses and vehicles taking them to work will receive a police escort to make sure they are protected," police spokesperson Brigadier Thulani Ngubane said.
"Everything is in place. Police are out and about doing their work."
The companies have been taking their latest wage offer directly to
Amcu's members after wage talks with the union collapsed three weeks
ago.
The strike has halted 40% of normal global output and dented the country's already sluggish growth. It has cost the companies about R14bn in revenue and workers have lost over R6bn in earnings.
Lonmin warned that it might implement restructuring that could lead to a loss of jobs if striking mineworkers failed to return to work on Wednesday.
The company set May 14 as the deadline for employees to end the almost four-month-old strike.
Fears of friction between strikers and miners wishing to return to work arose when Amcu objected to employers approaching miners with their wage offer directly in a bid to end the strike. On Monday, police said three miners were killed and six others stabbed while on their way to work.
A 60-year-old miner had been stabbed to death, another miner died after being set alight, and a third mineworker and his wife were strangled to death.
