Dispute halts work at AngloGold shaft

File image: Reuters

File image: Reuters

Published Nov 6, 2012

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Production ground to a halt at AngloGold Ashanti's Mponeng shaft again on Tuesday morning in a dispute over incentive bonuses.

Company spokesman Alan Fine said it decided not to send down the shift on Tuesday morning because of another sit-in on Monday, when workers did not return to the surface until 6pm.

“It is closed and we are deciding what to do next,” said Fine. “We haven't requested anyone to go down.”

Miner Rodgers Motlhabane said the shaft was closed because workers were refusing to go underground until everybody received the R1500 bonus they were promised as one of the incentives to end their strike.

They stayed underground on Monday because only those workers who banked with Ubank had received their bonuses, he said.

Motlhabane said it was not about workers being in financial difficulty or desperate.

“We don't have to have conditions on 1/8getting 3/8 our own money because we are working for it,” said Motlhabane.

The miners wanted transparency from management. He said they had been told they would receive an incentive bonus within seven days of going back to work and that not all of them had.

Once they were back at work they found out the bonus was conditional on safety, production, and the meeting of no-strike targets. The mine said these were essential for safe working conditions. Fine said the bonuses would all be paid by Tuesday. He said operations at the rest of the company were not affected.

Last week there was a similar sit in at the company's TauTona and Mponeng operations.

On October 26, most of the company's 12,000 striking mineworkers went back to work. The strike had started at the company's Kopanong operations on September 20. The effect of the strikes would be discussed in the company's results, to be released on Thursday.

Motlhabane is a spokesman for the National Strike Committee, a group formed during the Lonmin Marikana strike, when the established National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) appeared to lose ground. Many on the committee are also NUM members.

NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka could not comment on the developments at Mponeng, and the regional co-ordinator was not immediately available for comment. - Sapa

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