MORE than 100 miners who had been underground for nearly three days amid a standoff between rival South African labour unions have returned to the surface.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), said on Wednesday that 107 miners “have come back to the surface” at the Gold One mine, east of Johannesburg.
“They are currently at the medical station for further check-ups,” NUM spokesperson Livhuwani Mammburu told the AFP news agency.
More than 500 miners failed to emerge at the end of their night shift on Sunday, local media reported earlier this week. The NUM, the only formally recognised union at the mine, said they were being held underground by the rival Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU).
Management joined the NUM in asserting that the workers were being “held hostage”.
But the AMCU denied the allegations and claimed that the miners were staging a “sit-in” protest.
The NUM is currently the only union officially registered at the mine. However, the AMCU says an overwhelming majority of miners have signed up to join it, but it is yet to be given official recognition. That is the reason that the miners are protesting, it asserts.
