Exxaro Sands strike to spread like ‘wild fire’

[miningmx.com] — The strike by more than 600 workers at Exxaro Sands in
KwaZulu-Natal, now in its fourth day, will spread “like wildfire”, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Thursday.

“The employer refused to budge on the 14% wage demandby Exxaro Sands workers,” the NUM said in a statement.

It was considering bringing the entire Exxaro group to its knees, “that is, spreading the mass action throughout Exxaro operations in the country”, it said.

Workers have also demanded that Exxaro address the problem of lowest paid workers and ban labour brokers.

“The NUM calls on Exxaro to reconsider its position or face the ire of the workers as a whole; otherwise the strike will spread like wildfire to all its operations and will take forever and ever amen as from next week.”

Exxaro has offered NUM members a wage increase of 8%.

Exxaro could not comment immediately.