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Unions embrace mechanisation at Styldrift platinum project

Royal Bafokeng Platinum CEO Steve Phiri tells Mining Weekly Online's Martin Creamer that labour unions have embraced the company's foray into mechanised mining at the new Styldrift platinum project, which will employ 4 000 people when fully ramped up. Video and Video Editing: Darlene Creamer.

12th August 2014

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Labour has embraced the introduction of mechanised mining at Royal Bafokeng Platinum’s (RBPlat’s) Styldrift project, says RBPlat CEO Steve Phiri.

Phiri, who spoke to Mining Weekly Online in a video interview (see attached), says the company’s workforce understands that mechanisation is essential for the project’s optimisation.

Of JSE-listed RBPlat’s 6 213 employees, just over 70% are members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), 25% are members of Uasa and the rest are not unionised.

The black-owned and black-controlled RBPlat last year managed to clip more than R400-million off the capital expenditure (capex) required for the enlarged R11.39-billion Styldrift growth project, which is destined to be a high-powered 4 000-employee operation, with mechanisation reducing costs exponentially.

The Styldrift reef, which is 2-m-thick in parts and considerably uniform, lends itself to mechanised bord-and-pillar mining and the optimisation exercise, in fact, added 1 000 jobs to the initially envisaged labour complement of 3 000.

“The advantage we have, and I’ve got to say it again, is that we’ve got a very strong, fairly educated union leadership that can understand technological, financial and leadership issues quite well.

“You can sit down with them and say this is the strategy, this is the business plan, do you have an input, and they grasp the issues quite quickly,” Phiri told Mining Weekly Online.

Technological innovation is also being embraced at RBPlat’s conventional, labour-intensive Bafokeng Rasimone Platinum Mine (BRPM), especially when it comes to safety.

The BRPM workforce put in a stint during the platinum belt’s horrific recent five-months strike that saw overall labour productivity improve 3% to 31t per employee costed and stoping efficiencies rise 5% to 325 m2 per crew, which was helped by employees volunteering to work on public holidays.

Sacrificing public holidays to achieve company targets comes against the background of RBPlat’s latest three-year wage agreement, which contains an efficiency-improvement model.

Agreed targets are built into the model and the mineworkers themselves volunteer to work over weekends or on public holidays in order to match performance levels to the targets and, of course, receive handsome remuneration for producing according to plan.

The alignment of labour saw RBPlat producing 3% more platinum-group metals to 134 229 oz in the six months to June 30, headline earnings a share rise 33% to 116c a share and revenue lift 18% to R1.8-million. (Also watch attached video).

RBPlat’s home ownership scheme for its workforce has also been praised by NUM branch chairperson Papi Moteti, who is dead against mineworkers being forced to live in hostels and blames hostels for the bulk of the unrest in Rustenburg’s platinum belt.

The completion of an initial 422 brand new houses will be followed in the next five years by the building of another 3 000 houses at a cost of R2.8-billion.

Phiri reports that RBPlat still has about 300 people – mainly contractors – living in hostels, which he says are kept clean.

“I frequently visit the hostels to check on the hygiene conditions and have lunch there,” Phiri adds.

On verification, any union reaching the required threshold can seek recognition at RBPlat.

“But there is also freedom not to join. At times we talk about freedom of association when people force others to join a particular union. We don’t tolerate that.

“Freedom of association also includes freedom not to associate,” Phiri adds in the attached Mining Weekly Online interview.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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