EWN reports that on Monday the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) embarked on an indefinite strike at Ekapa Mines in the Northern Cape seeking a 17% wage increase for entry-level workers.

The union said that pleading poverty and claiming it could not afford workers’ demands, Ekapa Mines had instead offered a 6.5% increase across the board. Numsa’s demands include, among other items, an increased housing allowance and medical aid allowance. Union spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola said: "Basically, what Ekapa is saying is that it expects workers to risk their lives mining underground for R5,700, for starvation wages which, as Numsa, we utterly condemn, and this is why they have provoked this strike and they have to take responsibility for it."

• Read the original of the short report in the above regard by Tamika Gounden at EWN

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