There are signs that hungry workers are trickling slowly back to work at two of South Africa's largest platinum mines on the eve of what threatens to be a tricky court case for the employers.
The industry has lost more than $1.8 billion in revenue since 70,000 AMCU members downed tools in the platinum belt on January 23 in support of doubling of entry level pay to around $1,170 a month by July 1 2017 - to be backdated to July 1 2013, with a strict no work, no pay rule.
AMCU wants an immediate pay hike and says it is prepared to strike for as long as it takes. This ardor may pale in the face of the fact that many of the striking miners are desperate. In the last week, soup kitchens have been set up near the mines in the platinum belt to feed they hungry.
Both Lonmin and Angloplats said Monday that workers were trickling back to work, but refused to say how many. The feeling is that figures could inflame the fraught relationship with AMCU.
Mpumi Sithole, a spokeswoman for Angloplats, Monday denied a newspaper report in Johannesburg that 30% of its workers had returned.
'I don't know where people would get a figure like that. We simply say workers are coming back to work and not giving out figures,' Sithole said.
Implats, which reported Monday ( that the strike has cost it 246,000 oz of platinum output, remains closed.
On Tuesday, the mission to get workers back to work may suffer a setback when AMCU and the platinum employers face each other across a Johannesburg courtroom. AMCU has lodged a petition with the Labour Court in a bid to stop the employers from by-passing it and speaking to workers directly. This new approach by employers has helped ease the trickle back to work.
Under the labor laws, ACMU, as the legal negotiating body, is within its rights to ask for a court order to stop the employers. It may prove difficult to enforce, but a ruling against could certainly be a spanner in the works for the employers.
Jimmy Gama, the spokesman for AMCU, was unavailable for comment.
