IN A bid to prevent the Rustenburg Municipality from instituting surcharges to Glencore Smelters and avert job losses, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) on Friday marched to the municipality to hand over a memorandum of demands.
The surcharge is defined as a charge over the municipal base tariff that a municipality may impose on fees. It is not a direct charge for electricity.
The union said Eskom was making an application to Nersa for a negotiated pricing agreement (NPA) for Glencore.
Numsa members from Rustenburg Smelters, Wonderkop Smelter, Boshoek Smelter, and business partners, also known as contractors, marched to demand that the municipality withdraw its proposal to charge Glencore Smelters an additional fee over and above the tariff by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).
In a statement, Numsa said this had become a burning issue because if the municipality got its way and imposed the surcharge, Glencore Smelters would move its operations elsewhere.
“Ordinarily Numsa will never defend capital. However, in this instance, we are defending the jobs which will be lost as a result of the senseless decision taken by the municipality," it said.
According to the union, if Glencore moved its operations, at least 1050 direct jobs would be lost, but what was even worse was that more than 7300 jobs along the value chain would also be affected.
“This is why Numsa had no choice but to get involved to defend the jobs of its members, and also defend the livelihoods of the Rustenburg community as a whole,” the union said.
Numsa’s regional secretary for the Hlanganani region, Jerry Morulane, led the march and delivered the memorandum to Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Public Safety, Virginia Mputle.
Numsa said: “We also noted that some of the management of Glencore Smelters joined the march in solidarity because they understand that this affects them as well.
“It is in our collective interest to ensure that Glencore Smelters is sustainable and that we can protect the livelihoods of workers and the community at large.”
Numsa said it was disappointed that it had to resort to marching to the municipality to raise the issue.
“The MMC promised they would respond in writing in seven days. However, we have made it clear as a union that the only response we would accept is if they agree to withdraw the surcharge entirely," Numsa said.
On Thursday, Glencore-Merafe Chrome Venture, which uses the smelters, gave Numsa the go-ahead for the march.
Merafe and Glencore South Africa formed a joint venture in July 2004 when the companies pooled their chrome operations to create the largest ferrochrome producer in the world.
Swiss-based Glencore owns 79.5% of the Glencore-Merafe Chrome Venture, which has a total capacity of 2.3 million tons of ferrochrome a year.
In July, Merafe Resources said that the attributable ferrochrome production from the Glencore Merafe Chrome Venture for the six months ended June 30 decreased by approximately 9% compared to the prior comparative period.
In its production report for the six months ended June 30, the group said attributable ferrochrome production was at 185 000 tons compared to 203 000 tons the prior comparative period.
“The reduction is due to planned pull-back in production. Only the Lion smelter is scheduled to operate over the three-month high electricity demand winter season, a period of elevated power prices,” the group said at the time.
In 2020, the joint venture started a consultation process to retrench employees due to substantial operational and financial pressures.
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