Miners from a rival union are holding hundreds of colleagues underground in South Africa, police say

abcnews.go.com:

Police in South Africa say a group of gold miners from an unregistered, rival union are holding hundreds of colleagues underground for the second day over a union dispute

JOHANNESBURG — A group of miners from an unregistered, rival union are holding hundreds of their colleagues underground for a second day at a gold mine in South Africa over a union dispute, police and mine officials said Tuesday. Some 15 miners have been injured in scuffles, the head of the mine said.

Details were sketchy and there were conflicting statements over what happened, with the unregistered union asserting it represents the majority of employees at the mine and it wants to be formally recognized. It said the workers underground were staging a protest and there was no hostage situation.

According to Jon Hericourt, CEO of New Kleinfontein Gold Mine company, which manages the mine, the incident erupted early Monday when miners from the AMCU union prevented hundreds of others from leaving after their night shift ended at the Modder East mine in Springs, east of Johannesburg.

Hericourt said there were 562 mineworkers underground, and the company had estimated that between 110 and 120 of them were AMCU supporters. There were all sorts of hammers, picks, shovels and other mining equipment that could be used as weapons, he said.

Police said the mineworkers had been underground since their night shift began late Sunday. Mine officials were in talks with union representatives to resolve the issue and “police are on standby,” the South African Police Services said in a statement.

Police and mine officials were not currently in contact with anyone underground despite trying to reach them via mine telephones and two-way radios, according to Hericourt.