Police deployed to protect miners

Johannesburg - The police deployed additional officers to the platinum belt on Tuesday to protect miners returning to work this week, a police spokesperson said, as producers pushed ahead with plans to end the country's longest and most costly strike.

The four-month strike has halted 40% of normal global platinum production and dented already sluggish growth in South Africa.

Thulani Ngubane, the main police spokesperson in Rustenburg, northwest of Johannesburg, said police had set up park-and-ride facilities around the platinum mines to handle the arrivals.

It is unclear how many workers will be coming back but the three big platinum firms say a majority of the 70 000 strikers they have contacted directly want to end the strike.

"We are prepared for any eventuality," Ngubane said, although he said it would be difficult to provide security for the miners in the shanty towns that ring the main mines.

Wage offer

Four miners had been killed in the area over the last three days.

Members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) have been on strike at Anglo American Platinum , Impala Platinum and Lonmin since January pressing for higher wages but talks have gone nowhere.

Lonmin has said it expects more miners to start returning to work on Wednesday after it made its wage offer directly to employees, sidestepping Amcu.

Implats was still conducting an SMS vote on its offer, which was expected to be concluded on Tuesday and Amplats also said its workers wanted to return to work
"The main reason they are not coming to work is because they are being intimidated," said Amplats spokesperson Mpumi Sithole.

She said the company had provided bus vouchers to its employees in the Eastern Cape province, where many miners have their homes, to return to Rustenburg and most of them had gone back.

Overall

The producers say the strike has to date cost them about R17bn in lost revenues and employees have lost nearly R8bn in earnings.

Amcu's leaders maintain that most of their striking members are not happy with the latest offer of up to 10%.

The companies say that would raise the overall minimum pay package to R12 500 a month by July 2017, including cash allowances for things like housing, but Amcu says this is not enough.

"We have remained so far apart. A deal with Amcu at this point seems completely out of the question," Amplats chief executive Chris Griffith said, adding that most Amplats miners wanted to return to work.