JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) - Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) has confirmed that an unprotected strike at its Khomanani, Thembelani and Tumela mines, in Rustenburg, continued into Wednesday afternoon, after workers refused to go underground on Tuesday night.

Spokesperson Mpumi Sithole told Mining Weekly Online that the company’s management was engaging with the striking employees to resolve the situation, while its operations elsewhere in Rustenburg and north of the Pilanesberg were proceeding normally.

In protest against Amplats’ platinum restructuring plan, which it unveiled on Tuesday and which proposes reconfiguring its Rustenburg operations into three mines, selling its Union mines and cutting 14 000 jobs, workers at the Rustenburg operations refused to go underground for overnight shifts.

Workers were expected to plan wider strike action.

Amplats CEO Chris Griffith assured that the company would seek to compensate for any necessary labour restructuring through the creation of an equivalent number of non-mining jobs.

However, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu said her department had not been consulted by Amplats before the announcement of its restructuring programme, stating that the miner undermined the department by not engaging with it in taking a decision that could have a significant impact on the country’s economy.