In what many believe could signal a much-awaited breakthrough in South Africa’s costly platinum strikes, the militant Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) has revised its wage demand, it emerged on Tuesday.

AMCU is now looking for a salary raise that would be spread out over three years, taking the basic entry to R12,500 ($1,200) over that period, AMCU president, Joseph Mathunjwa, said.

At the time of writing, AMCU was set to continue talks with the three affected platinum producers, Lonmin, Amplats and Implats. At the time of the deadline, it was not clear what had been the outcome of the talks.

These producers have been hard hit by the strike which entered its sixth week on Monday this week and they each claim to have lost millions in the past five weeks.

Reuters quoted Mathunjwa as saying the new wage demand was made last week in an effort to “give the employers a breather”.

The CEOs of the three firms recently complained that they might not even afford to pay workers the offers they had made to AMCU if the strike continued unabated.

Mathunjwa added that AMCU was eager to reduce or put on ice requests for housing stipends in the workers’ demand.