JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Mining recruitment company Teba says that less than 14% of its workforce heeded day two of the strike, but the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) disputes the numbers.

Only 68 employees – less than 14% of the total workforce of 503 and less than 37% of the 186 represented by the NUM – have heeded the strike call, Teba says.

However, NUM says that it represents more than 400 Teba workers and not merely the 186 that the company reiterates.

“All of the company’s services are continuing to operate normally,” says Teba in a media release, refuting NUM’s claim of representing the majority of Teba employees and reiterating that only 186 of the total workforce are NUM members.

Teba also denies that its current minimum basic wage is R1 000 a month and says that its current minimum basic wage is R3 700 a month.

Annual wage negotiations between Teba and NUM began in October, when the union demanded a 15% basic wage increase and the company offered 4%.

A conciliation process failed in December, after NUM tempered its demand to 13% and Teba lifted its offering to 5%.

Teba says that the union subsequently revised its demand down to 8,5% but went out on strike before the deadline for a response from the company.

Something which may have served as a strike inhibitor is the company's employee trust.

Teba MD Dr Graham Herbert describes the trust as “unique” and believes it to be South Africa’s “most generous” broad-based black economic-empowerment (BBBEE).

Owned 75% by former NUM president James Motlatsi and 25% by employees, Teba provides recruitment, social, financial and employment services to the South African mining industry.

No employees have to date declined membership of the trust, which is a voluntary scheme.

NUM embarked on a wage-related strike at Teba, after negotiations chaired by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration deadlocked, and a certificate of nonresolution was issued.

Herbert reports that the trust, which has paid out an average dividend of R10 000 a year to each beneficiary, has a current net asset value (NAV) per beneficiary of roughly R60 000.

“This is the most generous broad-based BEE deal that we know of,” he says.

The trust has meant a regular fourteenth cheque for Teba’s employees who earn R4 500 a month.

NUM spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka tells Mining Weekly Online that the union decided to issue the strike notice a day before the deadline, as it was “apparent” that the company remained reluctant to meet the union’s demands.

“We have been negotiating with these people for a very long time, and no agreement has been reached to date.

“The ball is now in their court, but the union’s door will remain open and we’re ready for any further talks,” says Seshoka.

When Motlatsi bought 75% of Teba from the mining industry at the end of 2005, a precondition was that the remaining 25% should be donated to all Teba employees equally.

“These underlying principles support his nonracial vision and personal thoughts regarding the role of South African business,” says Herbert, who adds that, through the trust, Motlatsi also aimed to avoid the mistakes of BEE deals up to that time.

Motlatsi's main reason for crafting “such a generous deal”, says Herbert, was "to encourage employees to think like owners" and the company, he adds, is slowly seeing evidence of this.

“Our business serves mines and mineworkers, and beneficiaries have aligned their daily efforts to support this purpose.

“It has also cemented us all together, evidenced by our unanimous commitment to Teba's four values of hard work, absolute honesty, sound relationships, and good decision-making for the long term,” he comments.

Dividends, which have been put to a variety of uses from paying lobola to buying stoves, were paid from day one to allow employees to experience the trust’s value quickly.

It was Motlatsi's view that employees would "not understand ownership until people felt it in their back pockets".

NAV-per-beneficiary projections show that the trust will “generously supplement” employee provident and pension schemes.

“It stands out as a uniquely good BEE story,” says Herbert.

Created as a recruitment agency for mining houses to source mine labour from South Africa’s rural areas, and South Africa’s neighbours, Teba was formerly a controversial first stop for young men on the road to the mines on the reef, including Motlatsi himself.

Anglo American once fired the Lesotho-born Motlatsi, who has been involved in the South African mining industry since 1970, for leading a strike.

He later rose to the position of deputy chairperson of AngloGold Ashanti, and has coauthored a book with founding AngloGold Ashanti CEO Bobby Godsell.

In its unacceptable past, Teba would force young men to stand naked for hours on end, until some anonymous official would declare that they were fit to labour in South Africa’s mines.

Even Nelson Mandela was put through the humiliating experience when he came to Johannesburg as a young man from the Transkei.

The mines used to be prisons, Motlatsi once told Mining Weekly Online, and Teba was the awaiting-trial facility.

But times have changed and Teba has been transformed, from a one-time mining industry “club” into a profitable services business - ironically by one of its former victims.