In an attempt to halt violence of the almost four-month-old wage strike in South Africa’s platinum sector, the world’s No.3 platinum miner, Lonmin, is considering taking striking workers to court, it said on Thursday.

“The levels of violence are worrying, those will lead us to find all options including going to court to stop the strike,” Reuters quoted Lonmin spokeswoman, Lerato Molebatsi, as saying.

This move could be prompted by the violence which has suddenly plagued the striking workers in the past couple of days.
Violence emerged as striking workers allegedly tried to stop workers that are tired of the strike from reporting for duty.

According to Reuters, four workers have been killed at the weekend already as they geared up to go to work on Monday this week.

After failing to convince the leaders of the militant Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) to take their revised offer of 10 percent, the affected platinum miners Lonmin, Impala Platinum (Implats) and Anglo Platinum (Amplats), decided to send emails to each worker last week asking workers to start work early this week.

Striking platinum miners want to be paid a basic salary of R12, 500 ($1,202) and based on the comments they made on Thursday afternoon, they are not prepared to budge.