JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – While many of South Africa’s gold miners return to work, accepting a revised offer of 8% from the country’s main gold producers, workers at Harmony Gold are standing their ground.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka confirmed on Friday that its members at Sibanye Gold and AngloGold Ashanti had accepted a revised offer from the Chamber of Mines (CoM), which bargains collectively on behalf of gold producers.

But Harmony’s NUM-affiliated members, which comprised about 21 139 of the 30 000-strong Harmony workforce, had rejected an offer of a 8% increase in basic wages for category 4 and 5 employees, including rock-drill operators, and a 7.5% increase in basic wages for category 6 to 8 employees, which includes miners, artisans and officials.

Harmony and NUM would “sit down” next to week to resolve the deadlock.

This comes as the other gold producers within the centralised bargaining structure said on Friday that operations were returning to normal after the protected strike, which started on Tuesday.

Seshoka commented that while the strike was not “actually over”, many workers at the other gold producers were reporting for duty.

Russell and Associates spokesperson Memory Johnstone, speaking on behalf of the CoM, said that the gold producers would issue a statement soon.

Sibanye Gold on Friday reported that operations at its Beatrix North and Beatrix South mines were set to resume at night shift on Friday after the NUM concluded discussions with its members at the site, while its Kloof operations had resumed production on Thursday night, following a brief strike.

Both the Beatrix west section and the Driefontein operations remained unaffected and continued to operate normally throughout the strike.

The strike action was accompanied by speculation on Thursday that violence had erupted at the Beatrix operations, where seven Sibanye employees affiliated with AMCU were allegedly severely assaulted and hospitalised. Sibanye said that the incident remained unconfirmed, with “no record” of such an event emanating from the operations.

“[Following an in-house investigation] there is no record of the incident at the operations or of the alleged victims at any of the hospitals and clinics in the region,” the company said.

CoM chief negotiator Dr Elize Strydom earlier commented that the settlements reached at smaller producers Pan African Resources and Village Main Reef had encouraged the other producers.

Pan African Resources' Evander Gold Mine, with about 2 500 employees, and Village Main Reef, with a worker base of just under 2 600, had settled on an 8% increase in basic wages for category 4 and 5 employees and a 7.5% increase in basic wages for category 6 to 8 employees.

Sibanye is the largest employer of the seven producers with a 34 600-strong workforce, followed by Harmony Gold with 30 000-odd employees.

According to data released by the chamber, NUM represents 63%, or about 67 000, of the 107 000 workers spread across the seven producers participating in the national bargaining process in the gold sector.

The gold producers collectively deliver daily output of 14 400 oz of gold, of which 3 800 oz emerged from Harmony.