INDUSTRIAL ACTION ENDS AT SOUTH AFRICAN MINE
About 8,000 black miners returned
to work after a week-long industrial action at South Africa's
largest gold mine, mine owner Anglo American Corp of South
Africa Ltd <ANGL.J> said.
    A spokesman for the mining house said the action started on
Wednesday last week when thousands of miners staged a go-slow
at One underground shaft of the Free State Geduld division of
Free State Consolidated Gold Mines Ltd <FSCN.J>.
    The action later escalated into an underground sit-in at
the mine over the weekend, prompting management to close the
affected shaft because of what the company described as "the
creation of unsafe working conditions."
    Anglo American spokesman John Kingsley-Jones said the
company held talks with the National Union of Mineworkers
(NUM), South Africa's biggest trade union which claims a
membership of 360,000 black workers, but failed to establish
the cause of worker dissatisfaction. He acknowledged that the
mine suffered a loss of production, but declined to give
estimates.
    Free State Consolidated last year produced 104 tonnes of
gold from 28 underground shafts.
    The NUM was not immediately available for comment on the
action. But a spokesman for the union earlier told the South
African Press Association that miners had been locked out of
the mine at the weekend after staging a strike in protest
against being ordered to carry bags containing explosives as
well as food for white miners.
 REUTER
