Gold Fields to lay off workers, union cites safety

JOHANNESBURG, August 4 (Reuters) - Gold Fields (GFIJ.J: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday it would lay off workers from an older section of a South African mine, but a union said more workers than had been targeted for the exercise had asked to leave on safety concerns.

Gold Fields, the world's No. 4 gold producer, said it planned to pay compensation to 1,885 workers at its South Deep mine, under a voluntary lay-off scheme, but 2,050 workers had applied to be laid off with a voluntary package citing safety.

Gold Fields, which has had a string of mishaps this year, said it would complete the process by mid-August, but would only send home 1,885 workers, said spokesman Daniel Thole.

"The workers will be retrenched from an older section of the mine, this section has been depleted," Thole said.

He said it was unclear how much the retrenchment exercise would cost, but South Africa's Business Report said that the plan would cost 70 million rand ($9.71 million).

Lesiba Seshoka, the spokesman at the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), said Gold Fields had intended to move the workers it hopes to lay off to its Kloof and Beatrix mines from South Deep. But the workers had refused to be redeployed due to the company's poor safety record.

Seshoka, who said the NUM has always fought against any retrenchments of mineworkers, said: "They opted to rather go home than risk their lives there."

Work was delayed at South Deep in early May after nine workers were killed when a cage in which they were riding hurtled 3 km (1.9 miles) down a shaft on May 1, the day new Chief Executive Officer Nick Holland started at Gold Fields.

Since then Holland has been on a safety crusade and surprised the market on Friday by saying Gold Fields would shut part of its Kloof and Driefontein mines for months for safety repairs, losing 72,000 ounces.

The news sent Gold Fields shares into a tailspin, and the stock has lost close to 20 percent since then. [nL4295227] (Reporting by James Macharia, Editing by Peter Blackburn)