Big ore producers operating in South Africa, such as AngloGold Ashanti, are currently facing strike notices over pay demands, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) revealed.

This organization represents about 20 percent of South African gold-mining employees and is recalling their right to strike, despite the fact that most gold employees reached an agreement in collective wage talks last year, the association’s president, Joseph Mathunjwa, said last week, quoted by Bloomsberg.

The union is reiterating the workers’ right to go on a strike in the South African platinum industry, but the Chamber of Mines, which represents gold producers, claims it hasn’t been advised of an AMCU decision to strike.

As a result, “the chamber will oppose any strike action by AMCU against any of the chamber’s gold members who had participated in the wage negotiations on the ground that such strike action will be unprotected in terms of the law”, said Charmane Russell, a spokeswoman for the chamber at Russell & Associates.

Still, David Davis, a Johannesburg-based analyst at SBG Securities, says that “given the background of a low gold price and cost-cutting measures on the gold price, I think AMCU is saber rattling. The unions and the mining companies cannot afford any disruption of their mines at this time”.

Meanwhile, major companies like AngloGold or Sibanye registered hefty losses in the South African exchanges.