Striking Amplats workers hedge their bets

Johannesburg - Striking workers will decide on Monday whether or not to call off their strike.

Miners affiliated to the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) downed tools on Friday to protest plans by Anglo American Platinum to cut 3 300 jobs to restore profits.

Amplats is the world's largest producer of the precious metal.

The strike is centred around Amplats mines near Rustenburg, where Amcu has poached tens of thousands of members from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in a bloody turf war in which dozens have been killed in the past 18 months.

Amcu activists said earlier that they would strike until their demands were met.

An Amcu organiser in Rustenburg, Makhanya Siphamandla, said: "We're going to continue with the strike until the company withdraws these forced retrenchments."

Losses

Amplats has already backed away from an initial target of 14 000 job cuts after a fierce backlash from the government and the unions, including brief stoppages organised by Amcu.

The miners were given retrenchment notices on 2 September.

Amplats chief executive Chris Griffith, mindful of how strikes drove the company into losses last year, said on Friday that stoppages could put more jobs at risk.

Coal producers and unions also meet on Monday to hammer out wage agreements and avert strikes that could hit exports to Europe and Asia and supplies to Eskom.

Platinum wage talks have hardly gotten off the ground and could lead to more strikes in October.

South Africa accounts for about 75% of global supplies of the commodity.