Despite efforts to avoid retrenchments for some employees at its South African platinum group metals (PGM) operations, there remains uncertainty about the future of an additional 1,000 workers at one of Sibanye-Stillwater’s Marikana shafts. Mineworkers at this location have been instructed to minimise losses to the break-even point to prevent lay-offs.
The lay-offs in this region of the country is a wound in South Africa’s history and the site of what is known as the Marikana Massacre, situated near Rustenburg in South Africa's North West province.
On August 16, 2012, police gunned down 34 striking mine workers at the Lonmin platinum mine outside Rustenburg on August 16, 2012. In total, 44 lives were lost during the six-week-long labour dispute after a protracted wildcat strike of about 3,000 miners demanding a living wage of R12,500.
In 2017 Sibanye-Stillwater agreed to buy troubled miner Lonmin for about £285 million (roughly R6.9bn at current rates) to create the world’s No 2 platinum producer in a bid to ride out depressed prices for the metal at that time.
However, in a reprieve for mineworkers amid a cost of living crisis in South Africa, high inflation and a moribund economy, Sibanye-Stillwater said on Friday that it had reduced the number of planned retrenchments across its South African PGM operations to 2,600, down from the 4,095 announced late last year.
Although the company said it had completed negotiations with labour, trade union Solidarity has told Business Report that negotiations for at least one of the affected operations, the 4B Shaft at Marikana, are ongoing. Employees at the operation were now faced with uncertainty as they have to work to narrow down losses to break-even to stay in employment.
Gideon du Plessis, the secretary general of labour union Solidarity, said at the weekend, “On Monday we are continuing (negotiations) because 4Belt, one of the Marikana operations they (the company) have certain criteria set; for example they have to break-even and if not, then they will have to go through secondary Section 189 process. We are starting on Monday and it seems more than 1,000 employees will be affected there.”
In a statement on Friday, Sibanye-Stillwater said that the 4B shaft - where 1,496 employees and 54 contractors were currently employed - was “subject to certain conditions”.
It added that the shaft was set to “continue to operate conditional on there being no net losses” on a monthly basis.
“Should this not be sustained and subject to certain conditions the shaft will be closed,” the company explained.
According to Du Plessis, “An additional 1,000 mineworkers” from 4B would be affected should the company continue operating at a loss. Solidarity was now holding discussions with Sibanye-Stillwater to avoid job losses from the operation.
Mineworkers from the particular shaft were now pinning their hopes on possible transfer to the company’s other operations.
“Yet again, with Sibanye also busy with 4Shaft - getting it operational, hopefully a lot of the affected employees will be moved there.”
Sibanye-Stillwater said it had closed the Simunye shaft, which ceased production in 2023 while the Rowland and Siphumelele shafts remained in operation although they been re-positioned for sustainable levels of production at a lower cost structure.
Of the 4,095 retrenchments announced by the company last year, there were now 467 fewer potentially affected employees due to natural attrition while 351 employees had accepted transfers to other shafts.
As many as 1,281 employees were granted voluntary separation or early retirement packages in addition to the 47 employees who could not be accommodated through the agreed avoidance measures and have been retrenched together with 805 affected contract employees.
Solidarity said it was grateful though that “a lot of jobs were saved through natural attrition” while others were redeployed.
“They really go a long way in trying to accommodate workers and in trying to find every single solution to transfer staff and to accommodate everybody and to limit the number of employees being affected. We appreciate the fact that the number of people being placed in poverty is less than expected,” Du Plessis said.
Neal Froneman, the CEO for Sibanye-Stillwater, said on Friday that the decision to retrench employees from the SA PGM operations had “not been taken lightly”.
While the decision to close or restructure operations was never taken lightly, “the S189 consultation process encouragingly achieved the necessary requirement of addressing loss-making operations and ensuring the sustainability of our SA PGM operations and the benefits and value they bring to multiple stakeholders,” he said.
BUSINESS REPORT