S. Africa Strikers Urged to Resume Talks

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — The giant Anglo American Corp., South Africa’s largest gold producer, appealed to striking black miners Monday to resume negotiations and return to work, following the deaths of three more miners and the threat of increased violence in the two-week-old work stoppage.

Bobby Godsell, Anglo American’s industrial relations chief, said that the Chamber of Mines, which represents the six major mining companies, is prepared for unconditional talks with the National Union of Mineworkers. He implied that the chamber would no longer refuse to discuss union demands for higher wages, the central issue in the strike.

“The industry desires to talk,” Godsell told a press conference. “We are not prescribing what people can talk about.”

The mine workers replied in a message to the chamber that its “revised position . . . has created a climate to get negotiations in motion,” and a union spokesman said the stalemated negotiations, broken off last month, could be resumed as early as today.

Anglo American, in a conciliatory gesture, deferred the planned dismissal of 19,000 more black miners who earlier had been ordered to return to work Monday or lose their jobs. More than 10,000 miners have already been fired, most of them by Anglo American, which has been hit hardest by the strike.

“We really have to do this--otherwise the killing will go on,” Godsell said in his appeal for renewed negotiations. “I’m trying to end a pattern of murder and violence.”

The strike-related death toll reached six as three miners were reported killed in weekend clashes, including one at Anglo American’s President Steyn gold mine in the Orange Free State.

Godsell said that although the companies still believe that the pay increases of 15% to 23% that they implemented unilaterally in July are adequate, the union is free to raise its demand for a 30% across-the-board raise, which has been the major issue of the strike.

Government Warning

The union is also seeking danger pay, which white miners receive but blacks do not; 30 days’ paid vacation, the same as white miners; increased death benefits, and improved working conditions.

The government warned that the strike is now in “a critical phase” and that officials will watch developments closely.

“Continuation of the strike will have an adverse impact on the national economy,” state-run Radio South Africa said in a commentary reflecting government thinking, “and there is always the danger of strike action spreading to other sectors of the economy.

“Such developments would inevitably raise the question of the position and role of the state, which up to now has taken a scrupulously neutral position in the miners’ strike. The authorities . . . have a duty to protect the broader interests of the national economy in the event of a serious deterioration in the situation. . . . “

The union said that more than 340,000 miners--more than half of the country’s 600,000 black miners--remain on strike at gold and coal mines. But the Chamber of Mines reported that about 20,000 miners had returned to work and that only 212,000 remained on strike, down from what it said was a peak of roughly 232,000.

The independent Labor Monitoring Group, based at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand, estimated that 322,730 were on strike last week and calculated that the companies have so far lost about $95 million in pre-tax profits, more than the union demands would have cost. The striking miners, in contrast, have “not yet lost an amount equal to their overall gain” if the union achieved its goal, the group said, and were still 10 days away from that point.

But the mood Monday seemed to be one of settlement, perhaps late this week, if negotiations are resumed today or Wednesday.