Miners in South Africa suffer a loss of 815 millions rand ($44 million) in export revenues every day due to the ongoing strike at the Transnet, a state-owned company for logistics. Transnet that has hurt exports of commodities, a trade body announced on Thursday.
Transnet’s port and freight rail workers had earlier announced that they have rejected a new pay offer and promised to keep the strike that began last week.
The Minerals Council of South Africa declared that major port facilities for exporting minerals are operating at between the 12%-30% of their daily averages because of the strike. Transnet did not respond immediately to a request for comments regarding the estimates.
In the average year, South Africa exports about 476,000 tonnes of bulk mineral every day, worth 1.06 billion rand. But it is currently able to deliver 120,000 tonnes of mineral a day, an industry group stated in an announcement.
“According to our estimates, bulk mineral exporters are losing R815 million worth of exports per day because they are unable to rail and load 357,000 tonnes of iron ore, coal, chrome, ferrochrome and manganese onto ships daily,” the Minerals Council said.
Transnet announced that on Thursday that it had increased its wage offer to 4.5 percent from 3-4 percent prior to that, and added 5.3 per cent annual increases in the next two years.
However, it was the United National Transport Union (UNTU) as well as the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), which collectively represent the majority of Transnet workers, stated that they had resisted the latest proposal and will remain in strike.
“We have indicated to Transnet that they are not being responsible and reasonable,” UNTU general secretary Cobus van Vuuren said to Reuters. “The strike will be intensifying today and over the coming days, picketing will also be intensifying.”
SATAWU announced that it received the latest Transnet offer “with great sadness” and that the strike would not end.
Van Vuuren said the unions have put forward requests for an increase, which is in line with the South African inflation rate that was 7.6 percent in August.
Transnet has stated that meeting demands of the unions would not be financially viable since the wages currently account for 66% of the company’s total costs.
($1 = 18.3299 rand)
