DBCM CEO Phillip Barton
Photo by: Duane Daws
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The South African arm of Anglo American diamond company De Beers on Tuesday signed a three-year wage agreement extending to 2016 with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
The three-year-duration wage deal was the first of its kind with NUM, said De Beers Consolidated Mines (DBCM), which runs the Venetia diamond mine, in Limpopo province, and the Voorspoed diamond mine, in the Free State, and has employees at De Beers Sightholder Sales South Africa in Kimberley, where sorting, valuing and diamond beneficiation initiatives are under way.
The wage deal follows three-year wage agreements at Debswana in Botswana and at Namdeb in Namibia.
DBCM employees will receive a 9% increase backdated to May 1, 2014, and the same percentage in 2015 and 2016.
A subsidy towards homes owned by employees in areas where employed will also be paid.
DBCM CEO Phillip Barton said in a media release to Mining Weekly Online that pay discussions had taken place peacefully over several months within the framework of South Africa’s progressive labour legislation.
“The package put together rewards and I hope incentivises,” Barton said, adding that South Africans had shown an ability to settle amicably in recognition of being on a journey to secure a common future as a company, industry and country.