Striking Blacks Close a Third of S. Africa Mines

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa —  Striking black miners shut down production at more than a third of South Africa’s gold and coal mines Monday to support their demands for higher wages and safer working conditions.

The National Union of Mineworkers said that 340,000 of the country’s 600,000 black miners, including many who are not union members, have stopped work. Support for the strike is growing and could spread soon to mines where the union is not recognized, the union said.

The South African Chamber of Mines, which had predicted that relatively few miners would heed the strike call, acknowledged Monday evening that at least 40% of the country’s black miners were on strike and that the largest mines were the hardest hit.

44 of 46 Mines Halted

Work was effectively halted at 44 of the 46 struck mines, the union said, noting that these mines produce more than half of South Africa’s gold and 20% of its coal. The Chamber of Mines maintained that only 31 of its members’ 99 mines have been closed by the strike but agreed that a prolonged strike at these would have a substantial economic impact.

“The strike is totally successful,” said Cyril Ramaphosa, the union general secretary. “It is a very big step toward a major victory.”

Scattered violence was reported at several gold mines east and west of Johannesburg as strikers clashed with miners who stayed on the job and with mine security forces attempting to protect them. Union officials said workers at two mines have been forced underground at gunpoint, but company spokesmen denied the charge.

About 15 people were injured in a dozen incidents, according to the company spokesmen, and as many as 20 union officials and miners were arrested. Union officials, complaining of harassment, acknowledged the arrests and accused the police of interfering and assisting management.

But police headquarters in Pretoria declared Monday night that “no action was taken on any mine anywhere in the country.”

The strike, the largest ever in South Africa’s vital mining industry, could cripple the country’s economy if prolonged. Together, gold and coal exports account for more than half of foreign exchange earnings, and even in a recession, mining is the strongest element of the economy.

The strike already has strong political overtones, with the miners viewing their demand for a “living wage” as part of the broader struggle against the apartheid system of racial separation and minority white rule.

“The Chamber of Mines has consistently tried to crush the strike,” Ramaphosa told a news conference, “but the campaign for a living wage has now started in earnest.”

The miners are seeking a 30% increase in wages, danger pay, improved working conditions and longer vacations. The six major mining houses have offered--and unilaterally implemented--pay increases of 17% to 23%, bringing the average black miner’s wages to about $253 a month. This is about a third of the minimum pay of a white miner.

Negotiations Break Down

Negotiations broke down last month, with each side accusing the other of refusing to bargain in good faith.

“We have always said that we would negotiate, but there is a point where negotiations become non-negotiations,” Ramaphosa said, criticizing the mining companies’ practice of making a “final offer,” implementing the proposed wage increase unilaterally and then declaring an end to the negotiations. “Mineworkers are determined to show . . . they are prepared to mount a bitter and protracted struggle for a living wage.”

What the mineworkers want are “true negotiations,” Ramaphosa said, with give and take through the whole bargaining process. “We have given the chamber time, and the ball is now in its court.”

Johan Liebenberg, the chamber’s labor adviser, said the companies have no plans “for the time being” to ask the union to resume negotiations but would not, “for the time being,” begin dismissing strikers, as permitted under South African labor law.

“We are busy assessing the scope, the impact and the likelihood of the strike’s continuation,” he said. “We still hope the union will reconsider our offer--because that is all there is--and will end the strike before it does serious harm to its members and the industry.”

Blacks do nearly all the underground work at South Africa’s mines except blasting, which by law only white miners may do. The 26,000 white miners hold mostly supervisory and technical jobs.

Ramaphosa scoffed at management threats to fire the strikers.

“How do you fire 300,000 workers and hope to replace them within the rest of 1987?” he asked. “It’s not possible. Even if it were possible, it would mean that the mines would remain totally out of production for over six months.”

Sending Miners Home

The union began sending tens of thousands of miners back to their homes Monday in remote rural areas and in neighboring countries. Ramaphosa said union officials feared serious violence, worse than that in smaller strikes in 1984 and 1985, if the miners remained at their hostels.

But the move is also intended, according to industry sources, to increase the pressure on management to resume negotiations and to improve its pay offer. The more workers who leave the mine fields, these observers say, the longer will be the delay in resuming production and the greater the companies’ losses.

Previous mine strikes ended within two or three days, but relations between the mining companies and their black workers have become embittered after a series of accidents last year in which more than 800 miners were killed.