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More than 4,000 South African miners staged a strike against threatened lay offs forced by the tumbling gold price as neighbouring Zimbabwe joined protests against world gold reserve sales on Friday, AFP reported.
Zimbabwe's Chamber of Mines backed growing protests by gold producers over the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank of England decisions to sell gold reserves, which has knocked the metal's price to 20-year low.
Miners at South Africa's Oryx mine in the central Free State province began striking late on Thursday after talks between management and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) over the planned sacking of 900 workers broke down. About 30,000 jobs in gold-producing Zimbabwe are also threatened by the weak gold price, Chamber of Mines chief executive David Murangari said in Harare.
Mozambique has also expressed alarm at the impact of the weak gold price on jobs, saying this month that there are about 70,000 Mozambicans working on South African mines.
About 80,000 jobs in South Africa - the world's largest gold producer - are threatened by the downswing in the gold price, according to the union and mining houses. Some 40 percent of the about 230,000 men employed on South Africa's mines come from neighbouring southern African countries, AFP said.
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