South Africa mining production has been forced to flex its muscles as thousands of its citizens embarked on a one-day national strike today to remind the ruling ANC of its political clout.
The immediate targets of the strike are new road tolls around Johannesburg, and short-term contract Labour agencies that exploit workers and perpetuate the inequalities of apartheid white-minority rule that ended in 1994.
Gold Fields, one of the affected producers disclosed that its operations had ground to a halt as 85 percent of workers down tooled in response to the call for a strike by the Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU).
Harmony Gold, another major producer, said all of its staff affiliated to the National Union of Mineworkers, South Africa’s biggest union, had stayed away.
