South Africa Miners Strike Spreads

JOHANNESBURG -- Metalworkers at the South African operations of Anglo American Platinum are to strike over pay, the country's largest trade union said Sunday.

Between 1,000 and 2,000 Amplats metalworkers will put down their tools Monday, the union said, adding to the woes of the world's top producer of the precious metal whose South African miners are already on strike.

"The strike will start tomorrow," said Irvin Jim, general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa.

NUMSA is demanding double-digit pay increases and a doubling of the salaries of the lowest-paid workers to 2,500 rand ($225), Mr. Jim said.

It also wants improved accommodation and transport for the metalworkers, double pay on holidays and an end to the practice of conducting body searches at the end of a shift.

Amplats, which will release its results Monday, already has been hard hit by a platinum-miners strike that also affects rival firms Implats and Lonmin.

Negotiations between the three major platinum mine owners and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) are expected to resume Tuesday.

The chief executives of the three platinum producers this week raised the spectre of restructuring and layoffs if the strike persisted.

"Prolonged strike action will result in more losses, and further fundamental restructuring and, inevitably, this will have an impact on jobs and indeed the economy," they said in a joint statement.

The miners are demanding a base monthly salary of 12,500 rands ($1,150), about double their current pay.

It is the same demand that spurred strikes in 2012 that turned violent and resulted in the police shooting dead 34 miners on one day.