State offers to facilitate last-ditch mining wage talks – By Allan Seccombe and Karl Gernetzky – Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe on Tuesday said the government would facilitate last-ditch talks between the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) and platinum companies on Wednesday to stave off a strike threatening a fragile sector and that would do further damage to the country’s reputation. Amcu plans to down tools at the world’s three leading platinum companies and South Africa’s largest gold companies on Thursday in what could be a protracted strike over wages by a highly motivated and intractable union membership. Gold companies will go to court on Wednesday to seek an urgent interdict against the threatened strike in an industry that settled pay increases in September. Amcu’s demands include a more than doubling of wages for entry-level underground workers to R12,500 a month, even as platinum producers warned on Tuesday that the union’s unaffordable demands could scuttle restructuring efforts and force job cuts. Amcu’s current wage increases are unaffordable and unrealistic. It is of great concern to the platinum companies that employees are being made promises by Amcu that cannot be delivered upon, three platinum CEOs said in a joint statement on Tuesday. Mr Motlanthe’s spokesman, Thabo Masebe, said an offer of state mediation was made during a meeting between Amcu leaders and the deputy president on Tuesday, with a similar offer being extended at a meeting with mining houses on Monday. The offer was that Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant would be available to help facilitate discussions between Amcu and the platinum companies, in recognition of the fact that all three companies were faced with concurrent strike action despite having bargained at a company level, he said. Ms Oliphant said earlier on Tuesday that she was scheduled to hold talks with both Amcu and representatives of Lonmin, Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) and Impala Platinum. Speaking on the sidelines of the annual labour council of the National Economic Development and Labour Council, Ms Oliphant questioned the logic of pursuing a strike to the point that it damaged workers’ interests. She said she would help facilitate discussions on Wednesday, but could not predict the outcome. Ms Oliphant warned organised labour that there was a risk that prolonged strikes could cease to be a weapon for workers’ interests but (become) an arrow that inflicts pains and wounds. The potential cost of strikes was recently underlined by the National Union of Mineworkers’ (NUM’s) 12-week strike at Northam Platinum. Industry sources said workers had lost 21% of annual earnings to secure a wage settlement of between 8.5% and 9.5%, excluding a R3,000 return-to-work bonus. NUM members are expected to return to work on Wednesday. There was a two-day delay in signing the deal due to haggling by the NUM over how Northam should make the R3,000 payment to keep as much of it as possible in its members’ pockets instead of going to debt collectors. The NUM is adding the ex gratia R3,000 to its reckoning of what it secured from Northam, claiming a double-digit pay increase, which puts pressure on the rest of the sector. Strike action in 2012 and last year cost producers total revenue of R12.54bn and forfeited wages of R1.18bn. During the period the sector’s workforce declined from 145,000 to 134,000. Amplats CEO Chris Griffith said on Tuesday that the strike threatened to derail the progress the company had made following its controversial restructuring programme last year, and could cause further job losses. Amplats, the world’s biggest platinum producer, underwent a major restructuring of its Rustenburg mines, which entailed shutting a shaft and cutting its workforce through voluntary separation, redeployment and replacing employees with contractors. Sibanye Gold, AngloGold Ashanti and Harmony Gold will learn on Wednesday whether their application for an urgent interdict against Amcu was successful. Amcu refused to sign a two-year wage deal with the gold sector in September. President Joseph Mathunjwa said the union would abide by the court’s decision but also expected the gold companies to do so to if the ruling went against them. Chamber of Mines chief negotiator Elize Strydom — representing Sibanye Gold, Harmony Gold and AngloGold Ashanti — on Tuesday warned of the potential consequences of the court’s decision: It will be devastating if the gold sector degenerated into mine-level negotiations because you’d have the scenario of different terms and conditions of employment at different mines in the same company and those would be linked to your union membership. It would be a recipe for industrial conflict on a large scale. The hearing will be one of the first in the mining sector to test the laws governing centralised bargaining and binding workers and their labour organisations to agreements reached in such a forum. Amcu is likely to argue that it has a majority presence in certain workplaces or mines and that it should be allowed to strike to back its wage demands, which are substantially higher than the increases agreed to by the gold companies. The chamber will argue that under the Labour Relations Act, such a deal is binding on all unions, and workers are employed by the mining companies, not the shafts, meaning Amcu is a minority union and has to abide by the agreement. Article published with the kind courtesy of bdlive.co.za
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 05:01:14 +0000