Rustenburg – Members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) have embarked on strike at Twickenham Mine in Burgersfort in Limpopo province, the union said on Friday.
Acting NUM spokesperson Livhuwani Mammburu said about 524 workers downed tools on Tuesday after Capital Development Services (CDS) served the union with notice to terminate contracts of 165 workers. CDS is a subsidiary of the Anglo American Platinum (Amplats).
The workers demanded that all affected employees be reinstated. They also wanted Amplats to cancel its contract with SAN contracting services as a labour hire, and to absorb all CDS employees when they returned to work.
“The reason of the employer to retrench these employees does not make sense. The majority of these employees likely to be retrenched are from the local communities in Burgersfort,” said Matlagolo Mmowa, NUM north east deputy regional secretary of education.
“We have also been engaging with CDS for the last six months where we proposed as the NUM that the company must consider voluntary severance package (VSP’s) as an alternative to avoid retrenchments. These employees do not even have retirement and pension funds.”
ANA