About 100,000 South African gold miners, demanding higher wages, stayed off work on Monday in the country's first industry-wide strike in 18 years, bringing mines in the world's biggest bullion producer to a standstill.
The gold miners' strike is the latest and biggest industrial action in recent weeks in a country plagued by huge income gaps between the rich and mostly black poor, more than a decade after the end of white minority rule.
"The strike is 100 percent countrywide, all our people, about 100,000 of them are on strike," Gwede Mantashe, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), told Reuters. The strike started across the country on Sunday at 6 pm local time (1600 GMT).
"It seems all the gold mines have come to a standstill," Chamber of Mines head negotiator Frans Barker told Reuters.
The strike had paralysed the South African mines of the world's No 2 gold producer AngloGold Ashanti, fourth-ranked Gold Fields, sixth-placed Harmony Gold and South Deep, Barker said.
He said the chamber, which negotiates wages on behalf of gold producers, estimated a daily loss of around 40,000 ounces of gold production and 130 million rand ($20.17 million) in combined lost revenue per day due to the strike.
In 11th-hour talks on Sunday, AngloGold and South Deep, a joint venture of South Africa's Western Areas and Canada's Placer Dome offered wage rises of between 5.25 and 6.5 percent, the NUM said.
Two unions called the strike after rejecting the latest offer by the Chamber of Mines of a 4.5 to 5.0 percent wage rise plus bonus payments.
Unions are demanding a rise of between 10 and 12 percent.
"We are prepared to work hard to reach a settlement but this settlement must be responsible in relation to current levels of inflation and costs," AngloGold Chief Executive Officer Bobby Godsell said in a statement.
Miners, some of whom descend more than 3 km (nearly 2 miles) underground to drill ore in sweltering narrow tunnels, typically earn 2,500-3,000 rand ($387-$464) per month. The Solidarity union, with about 10,000 members, was due to join the strike just before midnight on Monday.
A third 15,000-strong union, the United Association of South Africa (Uasa), mostly made up of supervisory staff, said it had received an improved offer on Monday from AngloGold and South Deep of 5.25 percent from 4.5 percent, which it would consider.
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