Chinese firm caves in to workers’ demands after five-day underground sit-in at South African gold mine
- Breakthrough comes just a day after the mine-owners had dismissed all the workers’ demands out of hand
Sixty-nine South African gold-miners who spent five days deep underground in Orkney, northwest of Johannesburg, engaged in a sit-in over the refusal by the mine’s Chinese owners to meet their demands have ended their protest and returned to the surface, safe and with almost all their demands met.
Just a day before, the mine-owners, Chinese African Precious Metal Company (CAPM), had from their head offices in Shanghai dismissed all the mineworkers’ demands out of hand.
The underground sit-in, which is almost unique in South Africa mining labour disputes, was extremely effective, in part because under South African law, mine-owners are responsible for the health and safety of their workers while underground.
This left mine management with little option but to keep the mine fully operational, with safety and health teams on standby, while producing no gold at all.
The result was a swift victory for the mineworkers, once their protest and their case made local and international news.