JOHANNESBURG, May 2 (Reuters) – Impala Platinum said on Friday that two thirds of its striking workers had indicated by text messages and phone calls that they want to accept the company’s latest wage offer and end South Africa’s longest and most costly mining strike.
The 14-week strike by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), which has also hit Anglo American Platinum and Lonmin, has taken out 40 percent of global platinum production and cost the companies nearly 16 billion rand ($1.5 billion) in lost revenue.
Implats spokesman Johan Theron told Reuters that workers who were unable to send texts because they have no money for air time were making use of telephones at mine recruitment offices. “We will have a totally clear picture next week,” he said.
AMCU General Secretary Jeffrey Mphahlele declined to comment on the company’s claim, but the union said it planned to hold a press conference in Johannesburg on Monday.
The producers last week said they would take their latest offer directly to the roughly 70,000 striking miners after talks collapsed, setting the stage for a dramatic showdown.
Lonmin spokeswoman Sue Vey said the company had asked employees to indicate their acceptance of the offer by May 8 and that if enough did so, it could then aim to restart its operations on May 14.
“Our call centre is taking calls from employees explaining what the offer would mean to employees individually. Should we receive sufficient numbers of positive responses representing the correct mix of skills, we have set a provisional return to work date of 14 May 2014,” she said.
AMCU had initially demanded an immediate increase in the basic wage – net salary before allowances such as housing – for entry-level workers to 12,500 rand ($1,200) a month, more than double current levels. It has since said it would accept annual increases that would reach this level in three or four years.
The producers’ latest offer is for rises of up to 10 percent and other increases that would take the minimum pay package – the basic wage including allowances – to 12,500 rand a month by July 2017.
They say they cannot afford to pay more, given rising costs and depressed prices for the precious metal used for emissions-capping catalytic converters in automobiles.
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