Johannesburg - Prospects of settling the longest strike in South Africa’s mining history appear to be closer as employers confirmed they had received a formal response to their latest wage offer from the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) late on Monday.
“By the end of the week, the strike could come to an end,” Brian Ashley, a director of think tank and adviser to Amcu, the Alternative Information Development Centre, said yesterday.
“None of the issues Amcu wants employers to iron out are deal-breakers. Some of them will have to be addressed through the task teams that have been established.”
According to a sources close to the talks, Amcu had no intention to resolve the strike. In its response to the demand included that employers should not implement restructuring when miners returned to work.
It also wants a R3 000 once off payment to employees once they return to work. The source also said that Amcu had demanded that increases to the allowances including living out allowances should not be frozen as offered by the companies, and for back pay to disregard the no-no pay principle.
Charmane Russell, the spokesman for the companies could not confirm details as she was travelling overseas. Amcu national treasurer Jimmy Gama was not available for comment.
The remaining conditions to be thrashed out included Amcu’s demand for inflation-related increases for allowances. It also wanted Lonmin to reinstate the 235 essential services employees who were fired during the strike and to drop all criminal charges against employees, possibly including attempted murder charges at Anglo American Platinum (Amplats).
Once the producers had agreed on the issues, Amcu would return to its members for a mandate to accept the offer, Ashley said.
Lonmin, Impala Platinum (Implats) and Amplats confirmed they had received a formal response late on Monday.
The strike contributed to last week’s downgrade of the country’s sovereign rating by Standard & Poor’s and the downgrade by Fitch of the outlook to negative from stable. The strike was also a factor in the 0.6 percent contraction in gross domestic product in the first quarter of the year.
“We are trying to meet with Amcu as soon as possible... These are not straightforward issues and may take some time to resolve,”said Implats spokesman Johan Theron.
Lonmin spokeswoman Lerato Molebatsi said that, like Implats, Lonmin was interrogating the contents of the formal response and would address those issues directly with Amcu. “We are not at this stage going to have a public discussion about the content,” Molebatsi said.
Mpumi Sithole, the spokeswoman at Amplats, also confirmed the company had received a response from Amcu and was still assessing Amcu’s response. “An update will be issued where appropriate.”
Platinum producers proposed to increase the salary of the lowest-paid workers by R1 000 for two years and by R950 in the third year.