South Africa’s striking coal miners could end their industrial action on Monday after the chamber of mines offered them a revised wage offer, a union official said Friday. “They are the ones holding the whole process to ransom”, said Peter Bailey, NUM’s chief coal sector negotiator. In terms of the revised offer, most category 4-8 employees would receive increases, staggered over a period of time, of between R750 and R1000 per month in year one and guaranteed increases of 7.5 percent in year two. The accordance wishes improves of 12 % to 13 percentage.
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The NUM will be giving feedback to the Chamber of Mines on its latest offer today.
The union had been seeking a 50 percent rise for its lowest paid workers, who make about 6,000 rand ($445) a month in basic pay, but has since scaled that back to a demand of 1,000 rand, or an increase of about 17 percent. All employees have been offered higher allowances for living-out and housing. “The produces you’ll find that we have made are on the reduce of what’s affordable”, said Motsamai Motlhamme, coordinator of a given talks for the Chamber of Mines.
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Negotiations had stalled earlier on Friday, with NUM blaming resources giant Glencore for bringing talks to end the strike to a halt. The mineral supplies the fuel used for most of South Africa’s power generation.
