DRDGOLD operations at Blyvoor mine normalise * Workers reject gold price share scheme (Adds details, background) By Shapi Shacinda JOHANNESBURG, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Miners at South African gold producer DRDGOLD's (DRDJ.J) Blyvoor mine resumed work on Sunday after a three week wage strike, the company said on Monday. James Duncan the DRDGOLD spokesman said employees started returning to work on Sunday night and had by Monday restarted full mining operations. "The workers started coming back last night and everything is back to normal now," Duncan told Reuters. Duncan said employees, who accepted an 8 percent wage rise offer at Blyvoor mine on Friday, had rejected a gold share price scheme, which could have effectively raised their total annual wage earnings to 15 percent. Some 3,900 members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) at Blyvoor had delayed returning to work last week saying they would only do so after their union signed a wage increase offer with the DRDGOLD management. Duncan said another 500 NUM members at DRDGOLD's Crown mine resumed work on Thursday after accepting the 8 percent wage increment offer. "Surprisingly they rejected a gold price share scheme, which could have allowed them to share the upside in the price ... at Crown they accepted the gold price share scheme," Duncan told Reuters. DRDGOLD's shares were up 2.95 percent at 559 rand ($75.23) at 0715 GMT. DRDGOLD has said it was losing around 320 ounces of gold a day, mainly due to lost production at Blyvoor's labour-intensive underground mine. DRDGOLD's output at Blyvoor had already been affected by seismic event at its underground operations in late May. Duncan said the DRDGOLD would shed jobs at the mine to cut costs due to the reduced output and the strike could result in even more job losses than planned. (Reporting by Shapi Shacinda)

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