Gold Fields has fired 8,500 striking labourers, following their failure to return to work despite an ultimatum issued on Friday.
Workers at the gold producer’s KDC East mine failed to report to work on Tuesday, as per the final ultimatum.
Gold Fields spokesman Sven Lunsche told Reuters: “We have now reached a stage where we can’t hold off anymore. Our hands were forced and we have now done it.”
The work force at KDC East had been on strike since October 14th, joining in the strikes hitting all of Gold Fields’ other operations rather late in the day. The company revealed last week that with the KDC group joining the illegal action, 11,000 members of the gold producer’s 14,300 labour force was on strike, prompting the need for a resolution.
On Tuesday last week Gold Fields – which is the world’s fourth largest bullion producer – issued final warnings to striking workers at its Beatrix and KDC West operations, stating that if work was not resumed by Thursday firings would begin.
By Thursday the company announced that all workers had returned to the Beatrix mine – and shafts 1, 2, 3 and 4 had resumed full production. Meanwhile the KDC West workers continued to strike, although this situation was also resolved last week by the company’s use of hard-line ultimatum tactics.
Given that the KDC East group began their strike so late in the day, they were not included in previous ultimatums issued by the company. As such, the gold producer on Tuesday made an attempt to allure the strikers back to work with similar ultimatum tactics in order to resume full operations across the board.
Gold Fields has reported revenue losses of over 1.2 billion rand ($14o million) due to the labour unrest, equivalent to 65,000 ounces of lost gold. The company has also seen its mines suffer substantial infrastructure damage caused by violence on the part of strikers over the recent weeks.
The producer confirmed that it is on stand-by in case of further violence in response to the firings, however Lunsche said: “We are monitoring the situation very closely and have police on standby but it has been very quiet.”
