[miningmx.com] – THE National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) deliberately blocked efforts by Impala Platinum (Implats) to increase the wages of rockdrill operators in this company.
Last week Implats faced accusations by the Farlam Commission, and even by President Jacob Zuma in Davos, that unprotected, violent strikes at Marikana and then at other platinum and even gold mines were caused by the increases that Implats introduced for its rockdrill operators in March last year.
Johan Theron, CEO for human resources at Implats, said to Sake24 in reply to an enquiry about the matter that during the wage negotiations in 2011 Implats proposed that rockdrill operators should be given a notch increase, which would mean they would get increases of 10% as well as the usual increase of 8.5% negotiated for the entire workforce in negotiations with NUM.
“We considered it necessary because we felt rockdrill operators were underpaid. The chief negotiator of the NUM representatives said in the negotiation meeting there is nothing special about rockdrill operators,’ Theron said.
The available money budgeted for this increase was divided up for increases for the entire workforce. However, there was not a single rockdrill operator on the negotiating team.
That was in August 2011. In November, Implats offered additional increases for miners, a skilled work group that inspects the workface and mark the places where holes must be drilled for explosives.
The increase was 9% on the miner’s basic wage and an increase of 9% in his housing allowance – a step that quickly spread as a rumour among the workforce purporting to be an 18% increase for miners.
“We did this because our miners had also fallen behind. The annual turnover of miners in the previous three year was between 25% and 30%. We even had safety delays because we had too few miners in the shafts,’ Theron said.
The chairmen of the two NUM branches at Implats, Eddie Majadibodu, and one Yster, are both miners. The increases were once again presented to the negotiating committee and were accepted by them.
“Eddie Majadibodu even asked for a copy of the PowerPoint presentation so that he could show it to members,’ Theron said.
Miners and rockdrill operators work closely together, and the increase given to the miners quickly became known. This led to the unprotected strike by rockdrill operators that started in February last year and lasted two months.
Toward the end of the strike, NUM invited rockdrill operators to the negotiation sessions, but on 28 March the union announced in a press release that it had suspended these negotiations.
“The negotiations started well, but one could sense the increasing tension between the rockdrill operators and NUM. At that stage, the rockdrill operators and some other workers at our shafts decide to close the NUM office at the mine.
“NUM then suspended the negotiations and chased the rockdrill operators out of the negotiation sessions,’ Theron said.
However, the rockdrill operators already knew by then that the negotiations were progressing and had expectations.
“We were faced by the threat of further strikes but no party with which we could legally and credibly negotiate. We therefore decided to implement our proposed adjustment for rockdrill operators – as a management proposal and not as a negotiated settlement,’ Theron said.
The irony is that after these increases in April last year, rockdrill operators are receiving exactly the same wages as they would have received if NUM had agreed to the notch increases for rockdrill operators offered eight months earlier in August 2011.
Erick Gilitshana, NUM’s chief negotiator at Lonmin, testified before the Farlam Commission this week that these increases created expectations for Lonmin’s rockdrill operators that they can also negotiate for increases without NUM.
