With continued unrealistic wage demands and more than 10 000 jobs predicted to be at stake by the end of the first quarter of next year, artisan training in the mining industry is likely to take a back seat over the next two to three years, which will impact significantly on the industry at large, warns black empowered training academy the Artisan Training Institute (ATI).

Nevertheless, ATI director and cofounder Sean Jones believes now is the right time for local mining companies to invest in training artisans, though he admits that employers are not likely to commit to these costs if they continue to suffer from a lack of direction from government.

“Although this has been a difficult period for the mining industry, things will improve as they have always done in the past. What employers need is a clear message from the ruling party which will give business an unambiguous indication as to where they stand in terms of future policy,” he says, adding that, while it is not government’s role to meddle in labour disputes, it is its role to establish legislation and the right mechanisms for the resolution of disputes between respective parties.

“These actions indirectly affect the development of artisan skills that South Africa needs for future growth,” says Jones.

He further believes that retrenched employees could receive additional training as part of a severance package and tells Mining Weekly that ATI has already trained some retrenched workers for some of its customers.

Jones adds that, while it is difficult to train retrenched workers because of their low morale, postretrenchment training does provide an inkling of hope for those individuals who apply themselves.

Meanwhile, ATI has, for the last six years, been under new management, which has focused on consolidating the company’s local business and is currently one of the few training centres fortunate enough to be running at “close to capacity”. As a result, ATI has started looking beyond South Africa to broaden its footprint by setting up training centres in collaboration with some of the institute’s major clients, including equipment manufacturers John Deere, Liebherr and Komatsu, as well as cement manu- facturer Natal Portland Cement.

“Besides these businesses, we have been approached by several organisations and individuals to set up operations in Southern Africa,” says Jones, adding that, besides Southern Africa, ATI is also aiming to establish roots in Ghana and Nigeria.

Philosophy

He believes that ATI’s secret to success rests on the company’s philosophy to employ the best available skilled employees.

“Coupled with this and our broad-based black economic-empowerment Level 1 status, my business partner, Mandisa Nyathikazi, and I have ploughed 100% of our profits back into the company to fund growth and in-house development,” says Jones.

He says ATI will be able to retain this pace of development for at least another two years but believes that, if the world economy and localised corruption do not improve, South Africa will start to implode socially and economically, which will impact significantly on ATI’s vision for the future.

“ATI has already lost between R2-million to R3-million in cancelled sales, owing to retrench- ments in the mining sector during 2013. We have compensated for this by targeting new small mining operations that are starting up.”