Nigeria Content Online

More than 600
workers at Exxaro’s mineral sands unit in South Africa went on strike
on Monday, a union said, while 1,700 planned to do the same at a Rio
Tinto-BHP Billiton joint venture.

The National Union
of Mineworkers (NUM) said workers at Exxaro’s KwaZulu Natal sand units
were demanding a 14 percent rise in wages. The company has offered an 8
percent increase.

“Our strike is
indefinite. With us, you either deliver on our demands or you go fry
eggs,” Bhekani Ngcobo, the union’s regional coordinator for the
province, said in a statement.

Trevor Arran, the
head of Exxaro’s mineral sands and base metals businesses, said the
company would ask the union to drop its wage demand as it was higher
than the below 8 percent pay settlements at its other units and core
businesses.

“We certainly think it is unrealistic,” Arran said.

Arran said the
strike would not impact Exxaro’s operations as production at the mines
had been suspended before the strike and the company also had enough
stockpile of slag, used to produce titanium dioxide, at the units with
a 200,000 tonnes annual slag output capacity.

Ngcobo said the
union was demanding that Exxaro phases out a certain grade in which
workers’ monthly net pay was 5,800 rand and place them in a grade of
over 7,000 rand.

“We further demand
that the company should ban the usage of labour brokers and offer a
housing allowance of 2,000 rand a month,” Ngcobo said.

NUM also said it
would on Tuesday give 48 hours’ notice to strike at the BHP-Rio Tinto
Richards Bay Minerals joint venture if Rio Tinto did not agree to its
demands by the end of Monday.

The union is demanding a 10 percent pay rise on a one-year deal. Rio Tinto has offered an 8 percent rise on a three-year deal.

The NUM is also demanding a rise in housing allowance to between 4,000 and 6,000 rand, depending on the employee group.

Rio Tinto said it would comment later on the planned strike.

South Africa, the
continent’s biggest economy, has been hit by a wave of strikes and
strike threats in both the private and public sector, which have led to
above-inflation settlements and stoked fears that the cost of living
will rise.

South Africa’s inflation rate slowed to 4.2 percent in June.

Shares in Exxaro were up 1.48 percent at 114.88 rand by 1349 GMT, compared with a 1.83 percent rise on the JSE’s Top-40 Index.