JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), its recognised unions and the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) said late on Tuesday that they would resume talks at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) over job cuts, on Friday.

This comes as the parties reached an agreement on measures and mitigation plans to preserve jobs at Amplats, which plans to slash 6 000 job as part of a restructuring plan to restore its profitability.

NUM spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka told Mining Weekly Online that his union was hopeful that there would be greater consensus on avoiding retrenchments at all costs or reducing it to a minimal number.

“We have not set a target in terms of the number to which we want the retrenchments to be reduced, as far as we are concerned, we would not want any retrenchments taking place.”

Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union national treasurer Jimmy Gama commented that the consultation process would reveal what measures would be required to avoid or reduce job losses.

“We would like to see no jobs lost and, as a union, we will prepare our avoidance measures and submit it to the CCMA,” he stated.

“All parties worked diligently with the DMR to get to this point and agree that the measures will serve as a basis for meaningful consultation with employees and their representative structures. The parties are committed to ensuring a sustainable platinum mining industry that will contribute positively to the South African economy,” the company stated.

London-based mining analyst firm Liberum Capital commented that the failure to indicate what the possible lower number of redundancies would be and the impact on capacity cuts as a result, would further damage Amplats’ already struggling profitability.

The world’s largest platinum producer initially announced 14 000 job losses as part of a restructuring plan, but later reduced the proposed job cuts to 6 000 under a revised business proposal. Amplats plans to consolidate its Rustenburg operations into three mines and divest its loss-making Union mine.