(Recasts with comments to conference)
By Ed Stoddard and Tanisha Heiberg
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Wage talks are at a"critical stage" between South Africa's Association ofMineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and Anglo AmericanPlatinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin,the union's president said on Thursday.
Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a miningconference, Joseph Mathunjwa would not say if AMCU had movedfrom its original demands of close to a 50 percent pay hike.Amplats' chief executive said on Wednesday that his company was"fairly close" to sealing a wage agreement with AMCU and otherunions.
Mathunjwa, who led a five-month strike in the platinumsector in 2014, told a mining conference that a dose of"madness" was needed to shake things up.
"To disrupt capital ... We have to bring a bit of madness tothe programme," Mathunjwa told the gathering of executives,bankers, lawyers and analysts.
The Salvation Army lay preacher whose union dislodged theonce dominant National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on SouthAfrica's platinum belt in a vicious turf war, later elaboratedon what he meant by "madness."
"The madness...you have seen it in the five months strike,that is the kind of madness we are talking about ... SouthAfrica needs that kind of madness to change these neo-liberaleconomic policies," Mathunjwa told journalists.
"How can you transform a system within a system if you don'tdisrupt the system?" he added.
Addressing the industry bosses gathered for the two-dayconference at a plush polo club on the edge of South Africa'sfinancial district, Mathunjwa told them to start sharing theirprofits with the workers.
"The current system does not work for anyone but investorsand CEOs ... You still want to protect your super profits," saidMathunjwa, clad in AMCU's trademark green shirt.
He spoke of "slave salaries" and "colonialism" and"neo-liberalism," and even drew a round of applause when hespoke about corruption in government. (Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
