Strike: Amcu vows to carry on

Striking miners gather in Johannesburg to hear an update from Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa on March 27, 2014. File picture: Reuters

Striking miners gather in Johannesburg to hear an update from Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa on March 27, 2014. File picture: Reuters

Published May 6, 2014

Share

Johannesburg - In what may be the strongest political message yet on the platinum sector strike, President Jacob Zuma said yesterday that the three-month wage strike had “gone on for too long” and it was irresponsible of organisers to stretch it this far.

“The strike is not helping workers. There’s a limit to a strike. You can’t just have it forever. You can’t prolong that thing forever,” he told editors in Johannesburg.

This comes as the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) formally rejected the latest revised offer at a meeting with employers yesterday and indicated the strike would continue.

In a joint statement, the platinum houses said they were disappointed with Amcu’s decision because the new offer was designed to come as close as possible to meeting the union’s demand. They noted that feedback from many employees indicated they wanted to return to work but were afraid to do so because of intimidation.

There had been a number of assaults on employees at work or on their way to work, the employers said.

About 70 000 members of Amcu have been on strike since January 23 for a R12 500 basic wage to be achieved in four years at South Africa’s three biggest platinum mines.

Negotiations between the union and employers have come to a standstill and no more talks are scheduled.

“I find there’s an irresponsibility element here. You can’t go on with a strike that at the end makes them lose their jobs. That is irresponsible,” Zuma said.

Earlier yesterday Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa said the decision by the “platinum cabal” to approach employees directly with the wage offer undermined the credibility of the union and might destabilise the industry.

“We fear it might result in an unstable environment. It will divide workers into two parts,” Mathunjwa told a press conference in Johannesburg.

Last month Lonmin, Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) and Impala Platinum (Implats) started to communicate directly with striking employees. They have approached workers at mass meetings and in their homes in the Eastern Cape.

“The underhand tactics have been a catastrophic failure and exposed the desperate attempts by this cabal to divide the workers,” Mathunjwa said.

He threatened that the union would flex its muscles through mass demonstrations if shafts were closed.

This is despite Amcu’s limited support outside the platinum belt, where it is the majority union. Amcu is a minority union in the gold sector, where its attempt to strike for a R12 500 minimum wage is pending the outcome of a Labour Court decision.

Mathunjwa blamed Amplats for negotiating in bad faith. He said that in the talks the chief financial officer had indicated that the company had allocated R1 billion a year for wage increases in categories A to C.

Mathunjwa said Amplats inflated the staff component by about 5 000 in categories A to C. These additional employees had been retrenched as part of Amplats’s restructuring last year. This accounted for up to R500 million in exaggerated wage increase costs, he said.

“This engagement exposed that the employers, in particular Amplats, can actually afford the Amcu demands and the different positions were within negotiations range.”

Reaching R12 500 in four years would be a total cost to company of R1.3 billion in the first year for Amplats, or an annual increase of R1 800 on the basic salary, Mathunjwa said.

“However, these companies have resolved to hold the country to ransom.”

He said the union had exposed reckless spending on overtime, which predominantly benefited managers and accounted for “astronomic figures” of R691m at Amplats, R248m at Implats and R312m at Lonmin in the 2013 financial year.

The companies said yesterday that Implats continued to communicate with employees to gauge their response.

Lonmin asked employees to respond to the revised offer by tomorrow. A provisional return date of May 14 had been planned and would depend on the responses received.

Amplats had made its offer available to employees and had seen some uptake.

“Company security teams have documented dozens of incidents of threats of personal harm by faceless individuals, or by strike leaders from Amcu meeting platforms, aimed at groups or individuals who are at work, or who might be contemplating a return to work,” the companies said. - Business Report

Related Topics: