[miningmx.com] – IVANHOE Mines president and flamboyant mining promoter, Robert Friedland, has raised the ire of his platinum industry counterparts in South Africa following comments to reporters that his company would outstrip wages paid to miners on his company’s Flatreef platinum project in South Africa by an “order of magnitude”.
“In a platinum mine in South Africa today, you have to crawl on your hands and knees on that broken rock for several hundred metres to get to the working phase,” Friedland said at a conference in a report by Reuters.
“It’s pretty claustrophobic, the men are working with muscle power, they are getting silicosis, they are breathing what they are drilling and they are tired of doing it for $12 (R120) a day. I don’t think they are going to do it for much longer, and I don’t think they should.”
“You have heard of blood diamonds for example, or Apple getting criticised for what people get paid, or you see Gap stores get worried for what people get paid in Bangladesh for sewing your clothing. Similarly it is just not viable to pay these workers $12 a day,” he said.