-->der fast aussichtslose Minenarbeiter-Streik bleibt erspart:


Die Verhandlungen haben zu plus 10% Lohn-Erhöhungen geführt. Als erste hat
Anglo diesen Vorschlag gemacht, welchem jetzt GFI, HMY und DROOY gefolgt sind.

Mal sehen welche Auswirkungen morgen uns erwarten:

Goldpreis-Rückgang weil Streik ausbleibt, oder
Preiserhöhungen der SA-Minenaktien, oder wie wir es alle erwarten
alle Kurse steigen Gold und Minenaktien?

Emerald.

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-->http://www2.marketwatch.com/news/newsfinder/newsArticles.asp?guid=%7B6B16491A%2DB580%2D4E4C%2DA809%2DD1A6378C48A1%7D&doctype=2005&siteid=mktw&selCount=50&value=gold&property=word&

JOHANNESBURG, July 27 (Reuters) - South African gold miners called off a threatened strike against the country's three biggest producer firms on Sunday, saying an eleventh hour deal had met wage and other demands.

"There is no reason to go on strike. All our demands have been met," National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) General Secretary Gwede Mantashe told a news conference.

Mantashe said a majority of NUM members had agreed to the revised wage offers, but some sporadic action was still possible.

"There is a possibility that some pockets of mines will be out tonight," Mantashe told Reuters, but added that would result from calling off a strike so close to the action.

Both sides were under pressure to settle. The strike would have been the first major stoppage in the industry in 16 years, by around 100,000 employees at the three firms, and would have cost the sector millions of rand per day.

He said the strike tarbets -- AngloGold <ANGJ.J>, Gold Fields <GFIJ.J> and Harmony Gold <HARJ.J> -- had offered a revised 10 percent wage rise across the board for the first year of a two-year deal.

For the next year they offered an increase equal to the inflation rate plus one percentage point, but a minimum of seven percent.

The chief negotiator for the Chamber of Mines employers' group, Frans Barker, said in addition to the wage increase, they proposed to pursue a process to deal with the contentious issue of job classification by the end of year.

The union insists machine workers should jump two grades from the second lowest grade, but the chamber says this would in effect push up the wage hike by another 10 percentage points. The mining firms have offered to raise grading by one notch.


SURGE IN INFLATION

Mineworkers, citing a surge in inflation last year and a rally in gold prices since the last pact in 2001, initially demanded a wage hike of 20 percent in talks that began in May. Employers started with a seven percent offer.

South Africa's annual consumer inflation rate is currently running at around eight percent.

Talks under similar circumstances two years ago also went to the wire, with a strike averted at the eleventh hour.

A new wage pact is expected to have relatively less impact on profits for AngloGold, the world's second biggest gold miner which produces over 40 percent of its gold outside South Africa, analysts said.

Harmony, the world's sixth-biggest bullion producer, would be hardest hit by wage hikes due to its more marginal operations and high exposure to South Africa, other analysts said.

Gold Fields, ranked fourth globally, falls somewhere between the other two in terms of the impact of higher labour costs.

Mine owners have argued they can ill afford higher labour charges, which make up around half of gold production costs, especially at a time the strong rand has depressed revenue from gold, which is sold in dollars.

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