Johannesburg - Anglo American Platinum, the biggest platinum company, paid its chief executive Chris Griffith more than double his peer at the next-largest producer last year before a strike that crippled both companies’ output.
Griffith earned 17.6 million rand in salary, benefits, bonuses, shares and other pay, Amplats said in its annual report.
Impala Platinum handed chief executive Terence Goodlace 7.5 million rand in salary and benefits in fiscal 2013.
Amplats, Impala and Lonmin, the third-largest producer, are struggling with a strike by a South African union seeking a more than doubling of basic monthly wages for the lowest-paid underground workers to 12,500 rand.
The walkout is costing the industry about $18 million a day in lost revenue, according to the Chamber of Mines lobby.
The strike began on January 23.
Amplats reported earnings of 5.56 rand a share for 2013 on February 3 after a loss of 5.62 rand a year before.
It produced 2.3 million refined ounces of platinum. Impala’s profit declined by 52 percent in fiscal 2013 to 3.30 rand a share.
Goodlace will get no adjustment to his pay in 2014, and Griffith a 6 percent increase on his basic salary last year of 6.7 million rand.
The total pay of Lonmin chief executive Ben Magara was 703,167 pounds (R13 million) in the three months ended September, according to the company’s annual report.
Magara was hired as the replacement for Ian Farmer, the previous chief, as of July 1.
Resume Talks
Negotiators for producers will resume talks today at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration to try to end the strike after an offer of a pay increase of as much as 9 percent was rejected by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union.
Amplats last week told strikers they’ve lost more pay in three weeks than potential gains from higher wages.
The lowest paid would lose 4,700 rand of wages in the three weeks, the company said in an e-mail to workers on February 5.
Back-dated pay from July 1 last year, when the previous wage deal expired, would be 4,244 rand under Amplat’s offer, it said.
“The sooner the strike is over, the better in order to avoid further financial losses,” Amplats wrote in the e-mail. - Bloomberg News