JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on Friday said it was “extremely shocked”, following dual-listed Lonmin’s announcement on Thursday that it would cut 3 500 jobs.

The platinum miner said it was in consultations with unions and employees over efforts to reduce costs, to protect the company and its employees from persistent low platinum-group metal (PGM) prices.

Proposals under discussion would lead to a 10% reduction in labour cost and would result in about 3 500 job cuts.

“This reduction should hopefully be achieved through a voluntary process,” the platinum miner noted.

“We are going to fight against any job losses. It is very painful to see that these mining companies make the decision of cutting jobs easy. The platinum sector has cut 35 000 jobs since 2012, and it is time to join forces to end this bloodbath,” NUM chief negotiator at Lonmin Erick Gcilitshana said in a statement.

He claimed that the miner had not yet officially consulted the union. “We wish that these job losses can be avoided and, as the NUM, we will do our best to engage the company to save jobs," Gcilitshana added.

Lonmin said the mining industry was going through another challenging economic cycle and that it needed to make difficult decisions to maintain the resilience of its business and protect employment.

“Our cost controls, so far, have been encouraging but the price of our metals is beyond our control and we need to make further savings, including seeking voluntary reductions in our labour force which represents around 60% of our total costs,” Lonmin CEO Ben Magara said on Thursday.

“Nobody wants this, but we all have to protect the future of the business for as many employees as possible. I hope that we can do this together, for the benefit of the majority. Better times are ahead, but we need to get from here to there,” Magara concluded.