Reuters reported that miners ended a strike at South African bullion producer Gold Fields while President Mr Jacob Zuma pledged to speed up investment to ease grievances fuelling the worst labor unrest since apartheid.

But a month long strike at Anglo American Platinum, the world's top producer of the precious metal, showed no sign of ending. Workers were also still off the job at Harmony Gold's Kusasalethu mine.

With the government calling on miners to return to work, companies have become emboldened to issue sacking ultimatums to thousands of illegal strikers, a hard ball negotiating tactic that appears to be having some effect.

Gold Fields said that about 11,000 miners, threatened with dismissal unless they went back by Thursday had returned to work after a month long stoppage at its KDC West operations in Carletonville, 40 kilometers west of Johannesburg.

It sacked 1,500 miners who had not turned up for work at KDC West and gave 8,500 workers on a wildcat strike at KDC East another part of the mine, until early next week to report or lose their jobs.

About 15,000 workers have been fired in the past two weeks, although analysts say most are likely to be re hired because of the huge cost and time required to recruit replacements.

About 35,000 miners, or about 7% of the industry's total workforce, are on strike and facing threats of dismissal, although roughly the same number have returned to work.

Mining firms are expected to use the strife to scale down less-profitable operations, leading ultimately to job losses and causing headaches for Zuma's ruling ANC which has made reducing chronic unemployment a priority.

Miners' pay has risen steadily since the end of apartheid but poverty is entrenched in the rural areas from which most come. As wages have increased, so have the number of dependents, with a typical miner's salary now supporting eight to 10 relatives.

Source - Reuters

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