Johannesburg - Workers belonging to the major union at South Africa's Northam Platinum said on Wednesday they would not resume work at its Zondereinde mine until arrests were made for a spate of murders.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) also resolved at a mass meeting that Northam should stop holding talks with the rival Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) which has a minority representation at the mine.
The platinum producer suspended operations at the mine on Monday after a worker was fatally stabbed at the mine site when members of the two unions clashed. The mine remained closed for a third day.
Another worker was killed in a shooting on Sunday near the mine. Five other workers have been murdered at Northam over the past year in what the company described as separate isolated incidents. Police have not commented on the killings.
Northam urged workers to return to the mine on Tuesday, but they have so far declined to do so saying it was still unsafe.
The clashes heightened concern over a potential repeat of outbreaks of union violence that resulted in deaths and operational stoppages across the sector, the most gruesome being when police shot 34 miners in 2012 near Lonmin.
AMCU spokesman Manzini Zungu said the union's members had not gone back to work, saying “we do not want another Lonmin”.
The mine produces about 300 000 ounces of platinum a year, according to Northam's website, and accounts for about 70 percent of revenue for the mid-tier company.
South Africa is by far the world's largest platinum producer, and the industry has been squeezed between rising costs, labour unrest and falling prices. Demand for the metal used to build emissions-cutting catalytic converters in automobiles has also been tepid.
Mines Minister Mosebenzi Zwane will visit Zondereinde mine on Thursday to help resolve the crisis, his office said in a statement.
REUTERS