The country’s Labour Ministry says the three-week strike by metalworkers, the largest union, could be settled by week’s end.

The National Union of Mineworkers was not the majority syndicate in the five-month outage by 80 000 workers at three pits that produce 80 percent of the world’s platinum.

Impala Platinum, Lonmin and Anglo American Platinum say the strike cut their production by 40 percent and cost them 1.76 billion euros.

Angloplats says it will sell two mines it owns in Rustenburg northwest of Johannesburg and another it owns jointly with Lonmin.

It reported eleven million euros in headline earnings for the first six months of this year, compared with 93.3 million euros in the same period last year.

The NUM head Frans Baleni says selling mines will cost 20 000 jobs and it will try to stop this.

The 220 000-member National Union of Metalworkers and representatives of 12 000 engineering and car making firms met at the weekend to try to end their three-week strike.

The Labour Ministry says discussions went well and they’re confident there will be a settlement by the end of the week.

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Employers have been locking in their workers to protect them from enforcers from the 220 000-strong National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa.

Strikers east of Johannesburg have broken into offices of engineering companies and poured acid on their computers.

They also been marching on metal-working companies threatening any workers not supporting their strike for a 12 percent pay hike.

In the eastern province of Limpopo, police had to fire rubber bullets on workers picketing the Medupi power station being built to meet South Africa electricity generating shortfall

Talks were scheduled to resume last night (Wednesday) between workers and employers.

Steel and engineering workers say they’re either being forced to flee workplaces besieged by strikers or being held against their will by bosses on the pretext of protecting them.

The union deplores the employers call for police protection against striker’s intimidation, saying it seeks to undermine their efforts to get a living wage in a country still torn by world-beating inequality 20 years after the ANC came to power/

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There have been incidents of vandalism and intimidation early in the action which is as much a political battle as it is to secure a better wage for workers in the engineering and metals sector.

Ends intro

The 220 000-strong National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa – known as NUMSA – is demanding a wage increase of 12 percent, which is almost twice the national inflation rate.

It’s also insisting on a housing allowance for members of seventy euros a month and a government ban on the use of labour brokers.

Employers have countered offering an eight percent pay hike locked in for three years.

General Secretary of the Confederation of South African Trade Unions Zwelinzima Vavi says the strike’s against a political system that continues to allow the exploitation of workers 20 years into the country’s democracy.

Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene’s expressed concern about the strike coming so soon after platinum miners downed tools for five months.

But government’s also concerned because NUMSA is seeking to break from the ruling ANC’s alliance with the trade union congress and form its own leftist party.

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