Platinum giant Anglo American sacks 12,000 workers
South African firm says striking miners were dismissed 'in their absence'
Anglo American Platinum, the world's largest producer of the metal, fired 12,000 workers at its Rustenburg operations in South Africa and said strikes spread, halting about a fifth of global output.
The workers were "dismissed in their absence" after they "chose not to make representations" at disciplinary hearings, the Johannesburg-based Anglo American company said.
The stoppages have cost 39,000 ounces of output, or about 700 million rand (HK$640 million) in lost revenue so far, it said.
South Africa's platinum belt northwest of Johannesburg has been hit by a series of unauthorised strikes that have spread to gold, iron-ore and chrome mines elsewhere in the country.
A six-week strike that turned violent, leaving about 46 dead at Lonmin's Marikana mine, was halted after workers were given pay increases of as much as 22 percent, more than four times the country's inflation rate of five percent in August.
"This may exacerbate the problems they have - violence may go up," Lesiba Seshoka, a spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers, the country's biggest union, said yesterday. "I don't think it's a smart move." Anglo American Platinum, which produces about 40 percent of global output of the metal, said on September 12 it voluntarily idled its Rustenburg operations 170 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg to protect employees against outside intimidation.