[miningmx.com] – STRIKING workers at Shanduka Coal’s Graspan Colliery were thought to have been reinstated after the company’s founder, Cyril Ramaphosa, ordered a review of their dismissal.
Shanduka Coal dismissed 250 workers after an unprotected strike turned violent last week. The colliery has lost about five days of production.
“I am vehemently opposed to the mass dismissal of workers involved in industrial action,’ said Ramaphosa who in December was elected deputy president of the ANC at its Mangaung national conference.
“I knew there was a strike, but not that there had been any dismissals,’ Ramaphosa added speaking to the Business Times on the fringes of the Brics Summit in Durban last week.
“Problems that give rise to such action can always be remedied by discussion and negotiation,’ Ramaphosa said. Ramaphosa helped found the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) during the Eighties.
Lesiba Seshoka , spokesperson for the NUM, said workers were reinstated on Wednesday night, but a source close to Shanduka said they would be reinstated after an appeal and provided they were not involved in violence, said Business Times.
