[miningmx.com] – ANGLOGOLD Ashanti embarked on a fresh wave of cost-cutting at its South African mines after holding a meeting with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) last week regarding voluntary separate packages.
Acting national spokesman for NUM, Livhuwani Mammburu, said no numbers had been put on the table regarding lowering the group’s staff complement as the sides were considering “enhanced voluntary separation packages”.
“That is one of the mechanisms we can use to reduce forced retrenchments, if not avoid them completely,” said Livhuwani. There hadn’t been any discussion yet on which regions would be most affected.
Anglogold Ashanti said on November 3 that it would look at ways of removing duplications in services to the South African mines in an effort to affect cost reductions of 8% and help contain mining related inflation.
“This is how fast we need to run just to stay still on the escalator,’ said Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan, said CEO of AngloGold at the time.
“The restructure won’t affect production levels; it is about services to the mines,” said head of AngloGold Ashanti’s South African business, Mike O’Hare. “The details have not been discussed widely across organisation so I need to do that first,” he said.
Stewart Bailey, head of investor relations at AngloGold Ashanti confirmed the meeting with NUM. “We’ve not provided detail on numbers, which will obviously depend on the take up of the voluntary severance packages,” he said.
Said Mammburu in a statement: “There is no agreement on forced retrenchments because the company has not served the union with the notice as required by section 189 of Labour Relations Act.
“The NUM position is that there are still other options that can be looked at to avoid forced retrenchments”.
In July 2013, AngloGold said it had reduced staff numbers at its head office in Johannesburg “by hundreds” amid the collapse in the dollar price of gold. The metal was then trading between $1,200/oz to $1,300/oz compared to its current level of $1,153/oz.
