Amplats workers fear going to work

Non-striking Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) workers in Rustenburg were afraid of going to work on Friday.   

 

"We cannot go in. We are afraid," said a woman identifying herself as Magda. 

   

She and other women parked their cars at a distance from where members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) were protesting.

   

Earlier, a group of Amcu members marched down a road leading to Khuseleka mine shaft one.   

 

The group shouted at a woman walking to the shaft, before she got into a car and drove there. 

   

Amcu members downed tools of Friday in protest over the retrenchment of 3300 workers.

   

At Thembelani shaft workers were singing in front of the hostel gate while waiting for workers from different shafts to join them.

   

"We are all meeting here [at Thembelani]," said miner Tebogo Sikha.

   

"The mine is retrenching people [and] on the other hand they are employing new people. This means there is money," he said.

   

Sikha, from Welkom in the Free State, said families of retrenched workers would suffer.

   

"It will be tough for them, they will suffer because they do not have an income."

   

Police were monitoring the strike.

   

-Sapa