Workers Return to South Africa's Gold Fields Mine Gold Fields says that thousands of employees returned to work at the company's South Africa KDC East mine ending a 23-day strike. In a statement Tuesday, Gold Fields said that all three of its mines in South Africa are now back in production. The company, which is one of the world's top producers of gold, had dismissed 8,100 employees in October for participating in illegal strikes, however it says a deal reached with the National Union of Mineworkers saw a vast majority of those workers reinstated. The NUM said Tuesday that the 12,000 miners fired from platinum mining company Anglo American Platinum in Rustenburg for staging illegal strikes since September had still not returned to work, and negotiations were underway.