[miningmx.com] – HARMONY Gold Mining Company (Harmony) said it was a step closer to re-opening its Kusasalethu gold mine near Carletonville on the west Rand after holding meetings with unions on Tuesday (January 29).
“However, the mine remains closed until an agreement has been reached and all conditions of re-opening it had been agreed upon and committed by all the unions and other stakeholders involved,’ Graham Briggs, CEO of Harmony said in an announcement to the JSE.
A follow up meeting with the unions – which includes the National Union of Mineworkers, the Associated Mineworkers & Construction Union, UASA and Solidarity – has been scheduled for February 6, Briggs said.
The meeting was called in order to explain why Harmony had issued Section 189 restructuring notices to the unions – a development Harmony said the unions had now accepted. The temporary closure of Kusasalethu remained in place, Harmony said in its statement.
Up to 6,000 jobs was at risk in terms of the mine’s closure with a rehiring process and reopening of the mine scheduled to take place in July at the earliest.
Brigg said in January that he would not reward bad behaviour on the mine and that he felt it was necessary to “draw a line in the sand’. Kusasalethu was subject to a 23-day strike in 2012, which was followed by further disruptions at the mine in which two employees were killed.
Subsequent to that, labour had staged wild cat underground sit-ins and had shot at police on the premises of the mine – a condition that Briggs said Harmony could not tolerate further.
Kusasalethu is expected to become one of Harmony’s largest South African mines producing between 260,000 to 300,000 ounces a year of gold. It recently turned the corner in terms of its profitability.
