Striking workers at Lonmin’s South African platinum mines, where 44 died last month in labour strife, say they will not return to work until their demand for more pay is met, the leader of a key union said.

Workers are facing tommorow’s deadline to return to the Lonmin PLC mines paralysed by a four-week strike that has sent company shares plummeting, raised world platinum prices and stoked worries of labour unrest spreading through the mining sector of Africa’s largest economy.
“When the employer is prepared to make an offer on the table, we shall make ourselves available,” Joseph Mathunjwa, president of Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), told a news conference on Friday.

Mathunjwa was responding to his union’s decision not to sign a “peace accord” with its rival National Union of Mines (NUM) and the mine’s management last Thursday.
While AMCU says it represents about 7 000 workers, Mathunjwa told reporters that he supported the workers but could not speak on their behalf, according to local media reports.

Negotiations on the wage demand will begin tommorrow. Gideon du Plessis, general secretary of Solidarity, one of the unions that have signed the accord, said that all parties involved, including AMCU and representatives of the striking workers, have been invited to the negotiations. “Solidarity now appeals to the striking workers to comply with the requirements for the negotiations, namely to lay down their arms and to return to work by Monday, so that their demand could be addressed.”

On Friday, Lonmin said 2 percent of shift workers reported to their posts. Miners have said they have been threatened by striking miners with death if they go back into the shafts. They were demanding a monthly base pay of R12 500 (US$1 500), which is double current wages and an amount analysts said the financially strapped company cannot afford. — Al Jazeera.