[miningmx.com] — THE tussle between the National Union of Mineworkers
(NUM) and the Association of Mining and Construction Workers (Amcu) will dominate
the trade union scene in the coming months and years.
It’s a two-way struggle that’s being watched anxiously by all employers in the mining
industry. Everyone is saying that the emergence of Amcu will result in a fundamental
change in labour relations.
The NUM is the country’s largest trade union, and at its triennial congress in Kempton
Park last week it showed why: administratively and financially it is by far the
healthiest and strongest in Cosatu.
In the past year, its membership grew by 4% to 310,820 paid-up members – which
takes some doing under recession conditions.
This brings its monthly contribution to Cosatu to R800,000 – far and away the biggest
payment to the confederation.
Most of the growth was in the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging region, and largely
in the building industry, thanks to infrastructure projects.
Second-biggest growth was in disturbance-afflicted Rustenburg – the platinum heart
land – and at the collieries on Mpumalanga’s Highveld.
It was widely believed that Frans Baleni would lose his position of general secretary
at the congress, partly because of the large losses NUM has suffered at the hands of
Amcu at Impala Platinum (Implats).
For many years, there has been a breach between the NUM’s head office and the
Rustenburg area, the biggest of the NUM’s 11 regions. This started in 2005 and 2006
when then deputy general secretary, Archie Palane, was ousted on a technical point
from the leadership struggle to replace Gwede Mantashe.
Baleni won the leadership battle by default, but this resulted in a breach that Baleni
has not been able to heal properly to the present day.
This ultimately gave Amcu the opportunity to make a breakthrough, which started at
the unprotected runaway strike that paralysed Implats in February and much of March.
The profile of NUM members, which are constantly falling in higher and higher job
categories, played a large role in the breach between the trade union’s local and
national leadership structures and its grassroots members underground.
Characteristically the NUM decided at last week’s congress to fall in with the needs of
those on higher job levels by limiting membership fees, which are meant to be 1% of
a worker’s monthly wage, to R250 per month.
“There are managers in our branches who want to be NUM members, but earn
reasonable salaries. The 1% membership fee is a problem for them, which leads to
them joining Uasa and Solidarity,’ the resolution limiting the membership fee to R250
per month stated.
It is in fact the more senior NUM members who, during last year’s wage negotiations,
decided not to grant special increases for rockdrill and machine operators at Implats
last year, despite an offer by Implats that it could give bigger increases to these two
job levels. That was the fuse that caused the strike to flare up in February.
The NUM by implication admits its fault in the congress declaration that was accepted
on Saturday evening. In it, the trade union’s management was given special
instructions to negotiate a special wage arrangement for rockdrill and machine
operators.
The big question is whether the emergence of Amcu means there will in future be two
strong trade unions in the industry. It is easily accepted, by NUM office bearers too,
that Amcu may follow the same path as the Mouthpiece Workers’ Union, which arose
out of a bloody and completely unprotected strike at Anglo American Platinum
(Amplats) in the late 1990’s and ousted the NUM at Amplats for two to three years.
However, Mouthpiece arose from a single, ridiculous claim that workers wanted their
retirement money in the Amplats provident fund.
It was a blood-bath. NUM officials and office-bearers who opposed it were cruelly
murdered. There was so much destruction that Amplats finally agreed and paid out
the money.
Soon after the dust settled, the NUM started getting its members back, and today the
Mouthpiece hardly exists any longer.
However, Amcu is a different kettle of fish. It has been around for longer than a
decade, is well organised and has a trade union infrastructure and established
leaders. It looks as if it is fully able to be a worthy opponent to the NUM.
In the platinum industry there are numerous social problems that an innovative trade
union can utilise in a carefully prepared recruitment campaign. There is virtually
nothing in the way of accommodation – platinum mines are surrounded by fields of
squatter camps. There is also no central bargaining.
The NUM has been dragging its feet for years with the matter of forming a bargaining
council for the whole mining industry, probably because of vested interests. It would
probably end the gold sector’s hold on central wage bargaining if platinum mines
negotiated on the same forum.
The question for employers is how they go about to ensure the tussle for membership
runs peacefully.
– Sake24
