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Xstrata faced nationwide strikes at its coal and Ferro Alloys operations in South Africa as hundreds of workers staged a mass walk out over a dispute with the Company's employee share ownership programme.
The South African National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), who are leading the strike claim that the scheme favours management, and wants all employees treated equally, regardless of rank.
The employee share programme has its origins in South Africa's black economic empowerment drive which aimed to rebalance the ownership and income disparities of white apartheid rule. In this spirit, businesses with operations in South Africa set up employee share programmes in a bid to increase worker ownership.
Nearly half of Xstrata's total South African workforce of over 12,000 are members of the NUM and approximately 25% belong to other unions who may yet join the strike action.
A prolonged strike would severely affect South African Ferro Chrome production, already hard hit by power restrictions and higher electricity prices. However, the impact on world markets would be less severe than 2008 as South Africa now has a smaller share of the world's ferro chrome production. Countries such as Kazhakstan have continued to increase production and chrome ore exports to China has fuelled a large rise in their domestic chrome smelting capacity.
Xstrata is a leading world producer of metallurgical commodities. In terms of production, they are currently ranked the largest for Ferro Chrome, fourth for Copper, and fifth for Nickel. In the first half of 2011, Xstrata's South African production totalled 8.4 million tonnes of thermal coal and 581,000 tonnes of Ferro Chrome.
