Amplats agrees to wage deal

Picture: Boxer Ngwenya.

Picture: Boxer Ngwenya.

Published Dec 13, 2013

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Johannesburg - Anglo American Platinum Ltd., the world’s biggest producer of the metal, agreed to a two-year wage deal with members of two trade unions in South Africa, the National Union of Mineworkers said.

Workers will receive a wage increase of as much as 8.5 percent in the first year and 8 percent in the second year, NUM said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

The higher salaries will be back-dated from July and will be paid to NUM, United Association of South Africa, and non-union members on December 19.

“These are great achievements made for our members,” Erick Gcilitshana, NUM’s chief negotiator at Amplats, said in the statement.

“We have always argued that as a union we work hard for our members while others simply talk and make false promises.”

South Africa has been affected by strikes this year across industries including mining, automaking and construction.

The economy will expand by 2.1 percent in 2013, according to National Treasury estimates, the slowest pace since 2009.

The NUM has been usurped in the past year by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union as the biggest representative of employees at the world’s three largest platinum producers, which mine most of their metal in South Africa.

The nation has the biggest known reserves of the metal.

AMCU hasn’t agreed to a wage deal with Amplats and will ask members to vote on a possible strike next month. - Bloomberg News

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