JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The Labour Court has reserved judgment in the application brought against Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in a bid by the union to challenge the company’s proposal to retrench 3 300 workers as part of a restructuring drive.
NUM spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka told Mining Weekly Online on Tuesday afternoon that the union expected judgment to be handed down next week.
Amplats announced in August that it had, through the uptake by 3 600 workers of several “retrenchment avoidance” measures, scaled back the number of jobs affected by the restructure, from the 14 000 envisaged in January, to 3 300.
However, this was not enough to satisfy members of South Africa's Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), 2 000 of whom had embarked on a protest strike at Amplats’ South African operations on Friday.
Reuters reported on Monday that AMCU leaders had planned to meet with management on Tuesday for talks.
"If they do not meet us at least half way, the strike will continue," Thebe Maswabi, an AMCU branch chairperson, told Reuters.