Johannesburg - South Africa's Chamber of Mines hopes to resolve a disagreement over membership figures in a meeting with the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), the employer body said on Wednesday, a pivotal sticking point in wage talks.
An audit by AngloGold Ashanti, Sibanye Gold and Harmony Gold pegged AMCU's membership at 30 percent but the union says it has more members, challenging main rival the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) which claims to have a majority.
The gold producers met with AMCU on Tuesday and are due to continue discussions on Friday, a joint statement said.
The numbers are important because past deals worked out with the biggest union have been imposed on others with smaller memberships and AMCU's wage demands are the highest.
“We remain concerned that there appears to be a very real difference in opinion between the companies and AMCU, and it is that which we are seeking to address and resolve,” the companies said.
AMCU said it would return to pay talks after walking out of collective wage discussions that included other unions last week. The union is seeking a more than doubling in wages.
AMCU has taken tens of thousands of members from the NUM in the platinum shafts in an often violent turf war, and growth in its gold mining membership could point to rising tensions there.
According to the employers' audit NUM has about 52 percent of workers under its red banner.
Reuters