About 540 workers at Gold One International’s Modder East mine have been prevented from returning to the surface by labour-union members after a dispute over recognition, according to a company spokesman.
Workers at the operation near Johannesburg were kept underground after the night shift ended by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), according to Jon Hericourt, a Gold One spokesperson. “Last night we heard AMCU members prevented workers from coming back up,” he said.
For more than a decade, the company has identified the National Union of Mineworkers as the recognized labour group, Hericourt said. AMCU has claimed to meet the criteria needed to reach the status and threatened to strike in a court process that hasn’t been concluded, he said.
Jimmy Gama, an AMCU official, didn’t answer a call seeking comment.
Production is at a standstill as the company meets with labour and tries to gain access to the mine to help employees who have been injured in the dispute, Hericourt said.