(IDEX Online News) – South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers said negotiations over wages with De Beers SA have reached a stalemate and it will now go to mediation, with a strike a possibility.

 

The NUM said it reduced its demand for an annual wage increase to 13 percent from 17 percent.   

 

But with De Beers raising its offer to just 6 percent from 5 percent, the sides appear to be far apart.

 

NUM negotiator Peter Bailey said the current one-year wage agreement ended at the end of April and De Beers wants a new agreement that would last two years.

 

If, after going to a labor mediator a result agreeable to both sides is not reached, the union can seek authority to strike to strike.

 

NUM has 2,000 members at De Beers' South African diamond mines.