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All told, close to 100,000 workers were on strike in South Africa toward the end of September, and 39% of the country’s gold production was shut down, Bloomberg reported. How these strikes, and perhaps others yet to come, might play out during October remained an open question.

Here are brief summaries of labor-relat-ed actions at Lonmin, Impala Platinum, Anglo American Platinum, AngloGold Ashanti and Gold Fields during the month of September:

Lonmin: A wage agreement was signed on September 18 between Lonmin, trade unions and delegates of striking employees at its Marikana mine. The agreement included a signing bonus of R2,000 and an average wage increase of between 11% and 22% for all employees falling within a range of bargaining units, effective from October 1, 2012. Lonmin’s wage bill is expected to rise by about 14% beginning in October. On September 20, Lonmin reported that more than 80% of its employees had returned to work.

Impala Platinum: Impala Platinum (Implats) announced September 11 it had received a wage demand from the Interim Workers Committee at Impala Rustenburg. The company had previously implemented a wage settlement following a six-week strike that ended in March 2012.

Implats operations were not struck dur-ing September, and on September 27, the company announced that, effective October 1, it was implementing a “market adjustment” for its employees that would add 4.8% to its wage bill. The announce-ment followed a “full wage benchmarking exercise” that addressed wage issues across Impala operations, with a strong focus on lower-level employees.

Anglo American Platinum: Anglo American Platinum suspended activity at its Rustenburg platinum operations on September 12 to protect the safety and security of its employees from outside intim-idation. CEO Chris Griffith said, “Our employees are not on strike. However, in light of the current volatile situation in the Rustenburg area, where our employees, who want to go to work, are being prevented from doing so and are being intimidated by the threat of violence, Anglo American Platinum has decided to suspend its operations in the Rustenburg area with immediate effect. The suspension will continue until such time as operations can be safely resumed.”

On September 18, Anglo American Platinum reported that it was safe for its employees to return to work and that its Rustenburg smelting and other process operations were operating at normal levels. However, many mining employees did not return to work, and over the following days, it became apparent that they were striking.

On September 27, the company con-firmed that the employee attendance rate at its Rustenburg mines remained below 20%. “Despite repeatedly urging our employees to come back to work, attendance at our Rustenburg operations remains low. We have been left with no choice but to initiate disciplinary action, which could lead to dis-missals.” Griffith said.

AngloGold Ashanti: AngloGold Ashanti reported on September 20 that a strike at its Kopanang operations had shut down the mine and on September 25 followed with a report that striking workers had shut down all of its South African mines. On October 1, the company confirmed that its mines in South Africa remained at a standstill.

CEO Mark Cutifani said, “AngloGold Ashanti has safeguarded its own rights in relation to the strike by obtaining a court interdict to formally declare the work stop-page unprotected...If the current unpro-tected strike continues, it compounds the potential likelihood of a premature down-sizing of AngloGold Ashanti’s South African operations.”

The October 1 AngloGold statement also said, “We are deeply disappointed that our employees have chosen to break their commitment to the current wage agreement and collective bargaining structures. We do not intend to reward broken commitments, violence, and threats of intimidation...In a country where roughly one in four people do not have work, it is incomprehensible that strikers are en-gaged in activities that threaten jobs in a cornerstone industry that is central to South Africa’s growth aspirations, and where wage rates are highly competitive as compared to other labor intensive sectors in the country.”

AngloGold Ashanti is a member of the gold industry’s collective wage bargaining unit at South Africa’s Chamber of Mines and as such is committed to addressing demands regarding pay and other substan-tive issues through this framework. Currently, the gold industry is in the second year of a two-year wage agreement, with the latest increases, ranging from 8% to 10%, awarded to the workforce in July, under the agreement reached in 2011. A similar increase was awarded last year. South Africa’s annual consumer price infla-tion was 5% in August.

Gold Fields: Gold Fields Ltd. reported on September 25 that an unlawful and unprotected strike was ongoing at the West Section of the KDC mine on the West Rand in South Africa. The strike started on September 9. In the same announcement, Gold Fields reported that employees at its Beatrix mine in the Free State had also begun an unlawful and unprotected strike. The strike started at the West Section of Beatrix on September 21 and spread to the rest of the mine on September 24.

“The large majority of the 15,000 employees at KDC West and 9,000 employees at Beatrix are participating in the unlawful strikes, and production has been halted at both operations,” the Gold Fields statement said.

An earlier strike that began at Gold Field’s KDC East mine on August 29 was settled on September 5.