Johannesburg - Trade union Solidarity has set court action in motion to prevent mining firms Assmang and African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) from terminating its recognition agreement.
The union said it filed papers to bring an urgent application in the Labour Court in Johannesburg on Friday.
General secretary Gideon du Plessis said the application was for an interim interdict.
“(This is) to prevent the mining group Assmang from terminating the union's recognition agreement with the company and implementing a unilateral agency agreement.”
Efforts to get comment from both ARM and Assmang were unsuccessful.
Du Plessis said Assmang, a joint undertaking of ARM and Assore, had announced Solidarity was no longer recognised as a trade union in the workplace.
Solidarity's urgent application concerns the union's recognition agreement at the mining group's Khumani, Beeshoek and Black Rock mines in the Northern Cape.
Du Plessis said the two companies were committing the same error as employers in the rest of the mining industry “by applying the winner-takes-all system at the expense of other unions”.
“This approach to labour relations is courting conflict.”
He said alienation of the union happened while Solidarity represented the majority of employees in category C occupational bands.
According to a recognition agreement the two signed as early as 1996 any dispute about recognition in the workplace should be settled through private arbitration, he said.
Du Plessis said Assmang was undermining the law by disregarding an arbitration award in Solidarity's favour and the recognition agreement which had been in place for 16 years.
“Assmang's undemocratic action is an insult to skilled employees. The mining group is acting unconstitutionally by undermining freedom of association and industrial democracy.”
Du Plessis said Assmang's labour relations practices were a stain on the name of the company and that of ARM. He said the mining group was playing political games in an already tense atmosphere in the mining industry which came about by the exclusion of certain unions. - Sapa