Unions and producers met on Tuesday to try to end the biggest strike by South African gold miners in 18 years, but no end to the stalemate was in sight, negotiators on both sides said on Tuesday.
The Solidarity trade union, traditional representative of white workers, has joined the strike led by the black National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) - keeping some 110,000 workers away and bringing mines to a standstill in the top bullion producer.
"It doesn't seem as if we're making progress, the parties seem to be very far apart," Frans Barker, chief negotiator for the Chamber of Mines that represents gold producers, told the domestic news agency SAPA.
Barker told Reuters separately: "There have been offers placed on the table by gold companies. Unions say they are ready to look at some (parts of the offers) while they say others are unacceptable. It is all very mixed at the moment."
NUM General Secretary Gwede Mantashe confirmed that his union had met some producers.
"We are still engaged," he said. "I am unable to give you any specifics at this point."
The strike is the latest and biggest of a series of industrial actions in recent weeks in South Africa, which is plagued by huge income gaps between the rich and mostly black poor more than a decade after the end of white minority rule.
The NUM launched the strike on Sunday and the Chamber's Barker said it had brought mines to a standstill. Barker said the strike 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.
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.
The 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.
In 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.
On Tuesday AngloGold and South Deep added an increase of 10-16 percent in housing subsidies, Barker said.
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