[miningmx.com] — THE largely mistaken notion that striking workers at
Lonmin had achieved fresh wage increases of up to 22% has ignited the fuse at many
of the country’s other mines, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) warned on
Thursday.
It was also already too late to prevent a “blood bath’ of job losses, and the situation
could rapidly worsen, it said.
Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) on Thursday confirmed that very few workers
reported for duty at four of its Rustenburg mines after the company planned to
resume operations on Tuesday.
Since Tuesday’s settlement at Lonmin, NUM, the country’s largest trade union, has
received calls from other platinum, gold and coal mines about planned new strikes,
according to General Secretary Frans Baleni.
He said that Amplats has already issued Section 189 notices to some of the workforce
– the first step toward legal layoffs.
There was now also a risk that Impala Platinum (Implats), where workers went on an
unprotected six-week strike earlier this year, would have another strike, Baleni
revealed.
A workers’ committee, like the one at Lonmin, made new demands to Implats’s
management on September 11. After the Implats strike in February, rock-drill
operators received a small increase in addition to this year’s general increase being
brought forward.
Workers were now demanding that the increase was given as a bonus and that they
want another increase this year, in accordance with the original negotiated
agreement.
Implats told NUM that some of its shafts were already operating at a loss, Baleni said.
NUM President Senzeni Zokwana and Cosatu General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi had
to rush from the Cosatu congress on Wednesday to attend to the situation at the Gold
Fields KDC West mine, where 15,000 workers have been on an unprotected strike
since September 9.
There are growing rumours that the giant gold mine is considering dismissing the
entire workforce.
Other potential flashpoints, according to Baleni, include mining groups like AngloGold
Ashanti and Harmony.
The Lonmin strike actually resulted in the loss of 4,200 jobs, Baleni added. A total of
1,200 contract workers lost their jobs when Lonmin closed its K4 development shaft
shortly before the settlement. This development would later have created about 3,000
jobs, he said.
SOS
NUM is trying to prevent a new wave of unprotected strikes by proposing
extraordinary wage negotiations in the entire mining sector.
“We have sent an SOS to all our negotiators,’ Baleni said.
The aim was to adapt existing wage agreements within the formal structures before
the workers do it themselves.
The union is meeting the Chamber of Mines on Saturday with a view of moving next
year’s planned wage negotiations for the three major gold and coal groups to an
earlier date.
This was despite opposition by Gold Fields to any renegotiation of wages before the
current agreement ends in June 2013.
NUM would also be prepared to take action against its own leadership at mines where
workers have complaints against such officials. When a mineworker becomes a
permanent union official, he is due many benefits, including promotion to white-collar
work, allowances and a trade union car.
These incentives were being abused, Baleni confessed.
