Reuters reports that Sibanye Gold said on Monday that 178 illegal miners have now been arrested at its Cooke operations since the start of a violent wildcat strike last Tuesday.  

An anonymous company source added that the strike was continuing.  It was triggered by worker resentment at a company drive to root out illegal miners, who pilfer gold from the shafts after gaining access through employee collusion.  The illegal miners arrested have been forced to come to the surface because of the strike, which has emptied the shafts of employees, thereby starving them of their sources of food and water underground - an inadvertent consequence of the stoppage.

• This short report is at Mining Weekly

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page