Johannesburg - Government is considering deploying a peacekeeping force in the mining sector, Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant said on Monday.
The objective was to contain the violence that had plagued the industry, she told reporters at OR Tambo International Airport in Kempton Park.
“We will discuss that with the deputy president. If there is a need to deploy that peacekeeping force we have to do so in the mining sector as a whole,” Oliphant said.
“Because we can't take a chance, that since it (violence) has not happened here, probably it is not going to happen.”
Oliphant said government needed to be pro-active in dealing with the violence that had marred strikes in the mining sector.
She was speaking after meeting the Congress of SA Trade Unions, its affiliate the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu), and its affiliate the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu).
Oliphant said she received reports from the NUM that two of its members had been shot in Marikana, in North West, on Monday.
Police spokesman Colonel Sabata Mokgwabone said earlier that a man believed to be a NUM member was killed, and another person was injured in a shooting at Lonmin's Wonderkop hostel.
“One died at the scene and one has been taken to the hospital,” Mokgwabone said.
According to the police's initial information the shots were fired between 11am and noon.
Police could not immediately confirm a report that one of the men shot at was a NUM shop steward.
They had been told he was a member of the union.
Labour relations in the mining sector have taken centre stage since the killing of 44 people at Lonmin's Marikana mine last year.
Tensions between rival unions the NUM and Amcu have intensified in the platinum sector, leading to strikes. - Sapa