Neal Froneman
Photo by: Duane Daws
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Gold mining company Sibanye Gold said on Monday that the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) had served notice that it would begin a pay strike on Wednesday.
In 2014, AMCU led the longest strike in South Africa’s history when nearly 70 000 platinum mineworkers engaged in hostile industrial action from late January for five months in the Rustenburg area where Sibanye is currently in the process of acquiring platinum operations, as part of its diversification programme that is aimed at taking the company beyond gold.
Sibanye described AMCU’s latest strike declaration, this time in the gold sector and this time protected, as "unfortunate", particularly in view of its members already benefiting from increases the three other representative unions – National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Solidarity and the UASA – had not only nailed down, but also secured with beneficial backdating.
All employees, including AMCU members, were paid the wage increases, retrospective from July 2015, “in the interest of a harmonious working environment and sustainable operations”, Sibanye said.
Against that background, the company was adamant that the already implemented wage increases were “final” and that the strike decision taken by the AMCU leadership would “not yield a different outcome”.
Sibanye CEO Neal Froneman added that management was required to protect the interests of all stakeholders and would ensure that the viability and sustainability of the business was maintained.
“We have developed robust plans to manage the potential impact of strike action at our operations and will implement these plans accordingly,” Froneman stated in a release to Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly Online.
The company would also work with other relevant stakeholders to ensure that the strike was conducted peacefully, “within the framework of the agreed strike rules and in accordance with the law”.
AMCU president Joseph Mathunjwa reportedly objected at a meeting in Driefontein on Sunday to AMCU members being locked into an agreement below the company’s demand of R12 500 a month.
Mathunjwa said in a release to Mining Weekly Online that AMCU would not be deterred by the Labour Court’s verdict of dismissing its appeal.
He said that big mining companies had no interest in improving the lives of members and unlike NUM, his union would refuse to lock its members into a three-year agreement.
"We're ready for this battle," Mathunjwa said, vowing to in due course bring the entire gold sector to a standstill.
"We're not inciting war but our workers deserve more and we are willing to do anything possible to ensure they receive a living wage," Mathunjwa added.
NEW SOCIAL COMPACT
In an unprecedented move in February, Froneman invited Sibanye employees, unions and associations to enter into a dialogue on an innovative social and economic compact, involving job protection when margins are low and wage latitude when margins recovered.
The South African gold mining industry as a whole tabled the same concept during last year’s wage negotiations, where it was spurned by union leaders, who viewed it with suspicion. But Sibanye urged its employees to review the concept in view of the company’s margins being widened by the record local currency gold price of more than R600 000/kg.
Froneman said at the time that it was sad that the unions and associations had not bought into the new social and economic compact and that anyone who had watched the rise of the rand price of gold in the last few months would see that the unions had not done their members any favours by failing to engage.
Froneman made the point that the tabling of the new social and economic compact had been done with genuine intent and not as a wage negotiation tactic.
“It was a sincere intervention by the industry to move into a different dialogue with unions and associations,” he said after presentation of results for the six months to December 31.
Elaborating on the manner in which Sibanye was benefiting all stakeholders, Froneman recited chapter and verse how the company was facilitating affordable home ownership for all its employees, with houses being built and employees being able to secure bonds through normal commercial financial institutions.
“Real, substantial, material and sustainable” progress had been made in accommodating employees, and communities were benefiting from the company’s investment in multistakeholder projects aimed at re-establishing the West Rand as an agricultural hub.
Together with Gold Fields, he outlined how Sibanye had created 640 jobs through local economic development programmes and was planning to create another 1 000 by the end of 2018.
He also revealed that the company had 305 bursars, 6 321 learnerships, 6 673 local community representatives undergoing adult education and another 6 000 being provided with portable skills.
It had spent R130-million on uplifting labour sending areas, built two clinics that service West Rand communities and had 17 school projects on its books.
For investors, it had declared a final dividend of 90c a share, taking the full dividend for the year to 100c a share and returning another R916-million to shareholders, coming close to meeting its R1-billion-a-year target in a poor operating year.
In 2013, the company paid out R823-million in dividends and in 2014 just over R1-billion, which was being retained as the dividend target.
Since listing three years ago at R31.34 a share, it had given shareholders a 275% return on investment, amounting to roughly R38-billion of value created and a 55% compound annual growth rate.