It is unlikely that there will be further strike action over wages and working conditions in the South African platinum sector this year, as the agreements reached by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and the country’s top platinum producers last year are valid for a three-year period, making any strikes over wages or working conditions before 2017 unprotected, law firm Bowman Gilfillan partner Graham Damant tells Mining Weekly.

However, he states that there might, in the next couple of years, be wildcat strikes in the sector, as evidenced by the six-day strike at platinum-group metals producer Northam Platinum’s Zondereinde mine, in Limpopo, last month.

Damant states that last year’s protracted strike, organised by AMCU, had a material and significant impact on labour relations in not only the platinum sector but also the larger South African mining industry, and “highlighted serious weaknesses in the way in which organisational rights and collective bargaining rights are regulated in South Africa”.

He states that the strike, which ended in June, makes it evident that better regulation is needed to control rivalries between competing unions, as well as the interplay between centralised and decentralised collective bargaining.

In addition, mining houses also need to focus more on workplace relationships to enable them to deal with the disparate interests of workers in-house.

Damant points out that unions operating in South Africa can acquire organisational rights only when it represents 30% or more of the workers employed by a company.

“With tens of thousands of employees at mining companies this means that very important interest groups might be neglected.”

Bowman Gilfillan consultant John Brand notes that “collective bargaining also needs to be brought closer to the coalface”, attributing this to a need to recognise specific bargaining units with an identity of worker interest, and to permit union representatives to represent those interests at company level.

He points out that there is also a need to promote the tenets of industrial democracy in companies. Employers need not wait for legislation to achieve these goals, as employers can change “the way they structure organisational rights and the structures that they engage in during collective bargaining”.