Dineo Faku
A POTENTIAL clash between bitter rivals the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), who had been billed to hold meetings at the same venue at Sibanye Gold’s Beatrix mine in Welkom on Tuesday, was averted when the meetings were postponed.
The mass meetings were for unions to report back to members on the two-month membership verification process led by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), which found that Amcu had reached a threshold of 40 percent representation at the mine.
The NUM held its mass meeting yesterday, and Amcu is scheduled to meet with its members on Monday, after both unions agreed with Sibanye to change the meeting dates.
Sibanye confirmed that both unions had requested to hold a mass meeting on the same day, at the same time and at the same venue.
Sibanye had agreed that Amcu could hold a meeting, but later the CCMA requested that it be postponed until the verification process was finalised, spokesman Thabisile Phumo said yesterday.
“Procedurally, before the results can be made public, they [the CCMA] have to share the outcome with the unions. This is what happened on Monday.
“The request for postponement of the meetings scheduled for the Tuesday was to allow them to conclude this process,” Phumo said.
The NUM had not received approval for its meeting.
Amcu’s national organiser, Dumisani Nkalitshana, described the company as being mischievous in pitting the unions against each other, by granting both meetings.
Nkalitshana added: “Management [at Sibanye] is creating tension between the unions by granting the approval for unions on the same day.”
Sibanye denied the claim.
A source close to the NUM said its Tuesday meeting had been postponed after the union complained that Amcu was not entitled to a mass meeting until it had signed a recognition agreement.
Acting NUM national spokesman Livhuwani Mammburu said: “The meeting did not happen and had happened yesterday.”
While the NUM remains the majority union at Beatrix, Amcu will now represent 2 623 out of 6 385 employees in categories 4 to 9 at the mine.
Now that the verification process had been concluded, Sibanye would engage Amcu in a process that would lead to the signing of an organisational rights agreement, Phumo said.
Earlier this month Sibanye said it would discuss possible job cuts at its Cooke 4 mine with unions, but the NUM threatened to strike if it tried to trim staff, Reuters reported.