Dineo Faku
ANGLO American Platinum (Amplats), the world’s biggest platinum producer, yesterday announced plans to shed up to 420 managerial and supervisory positions at its Rustenburg Platinum Mines as the platinum group metals (PGM) sector takes financial strain.
The retrenchments come a year after Amplats, Impala Platinum and Lonmin were crippled by a five-month wage strike led by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union and excludes the Rustenburg and Union Mines, which are up for sale.
The job cuts are the latest in South African mining jobs bloodbath which has necessitated the formation of a save-the-jobs task team through the Mining Industry Growth Development and Employment Task Team (Migdett).
Amplats plans merging Tumela mine, Dishaba mine and Amandelbult concentrator into the Amandelbult operation. The Mogalakwena mine and Mogalakwena concentrator will become the Mogalakwena operation. The firm will close regional functional centres in Rustenburg, Amandelbult and Polokwane and their functions will be merged into the adjacent corporate office.
“The proposed redesign takes into account the financial difficulties in the PGM and is a continuation of Anglo American Platinum’s value-driven strategy. It aims to improve the company’s financial sustainability by aligning the support structure with the proposed reconfiguration of operations into large, more efficient mining complexes benefiting from increased scale and less complexity,” the company said.
The Anglo American subsidiary has begun a two-month consultation process with stakeholders, including unions, on the proposal that is expected to end on August 22.
Signs of recovery
Signs that Amplats has recovered from the five-month strike emerged last week when the company forecast that headline earnings will be at least 20 percent higher in the half year to June compared to the previous period last year.
In his speech in the National Council of Provinces yesterday, Mineral Resources Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi appealed to mining firms not to treat the shedding of jobs as a numbers game, but to appreciate the compliance and social aspects of retrenchments.
He also said a new board has been formed to advise on the job losses. “In this regard, mining companies are reminded not only to have future forums but must ensure that they are fully functional, as they provide a proactive mechanism in managing downscaling at a company level.
“A new Mineral and Petroleum Board, which has been established to provide advice, will, also in collaboration with Migdett, be looking at this issue of job losses,” he said.
Gideon Du Plessis, the general secretary at trade union Solidarity, said Amplats was likely to shed more jobs. “Lower levels will be next to be affected by the retrenchments.”
He said the gold wage negotiations should serve as a wake-up call for unions. “Unions cannot negotiate members out of jobs. The most vulnerable, with the least skill, are affected first when it comes to retrenchments. This is a warning, we have to be sensitive to negative aftermath of wage talks.”