ABSTRACT
After curtailing African demands for equitable working conditions for over 100 years, the 1987 NUM strike induced a comprehensive restructuring process in the South African gold mining industry. This restructuring was necessitated by the changing locus of gold mining internationally as reflected in declining South African gold output; the increasing depth of old shafts, which were becoming too costly to operate; overall rising production costs-overburdened by a large, overly unproductive “cheap labor” force; weak international gold prices, which have declined from a peak of US$835 an ounce in 1980, US$381 in 1989 and US$271 by 2001. For local capital, the political transition opened an escape hatch. As such restructuring process was accelerated by increasing output from greenfields explorations abroad, which have been comparatively cheaper.
