A review of union representation at gold producers AngloGold Ashanti, Harmony Gold and Sibanye Gold has revealed that the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) remained the dominant union in the gold-mining sector, despite contrary claims by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) of an understated representation amid thousands of unprocessed applications.

As the gold sector wage negotiations kicked off in June, AMCU accused the companies of failing to process claims and application submissions, which resulted in its reported membership representation being lower than it actually was.

A subsequent transparent and open verification audit, the results of which were agreed by the companies and representatives of AMCU, revealed that 95% of the 6 510 submissions received were not valid.

Another 308 membership applications submitted by AMCU were found to be valid and were still being processed.

According to data released by the gold producers, the NUM currently accounted for 52% of union representation in the gold industry, followed by AMCU with 30% and Uasa and Solidarity at 7% and 2% respectively.

Six month ago, the NUM had made up 57% of the representation and AMCU 25%.

At a company level, the NUM had a 47%, 44% and 66% representation at AngloGold, Sibanye and Harmony respectively, while AMCU accounted for 35%, 38% and 15% of employee representation at each respective company.

At AngloGold, only seven of the 1 449 submissions received from AMCU, dating back to 2012, were found to be valid.

Of the 247 submissions requiring further investigation – of which the seven were found to be in favour of AMCU and would be implemented for payroll deductions during July – 240 were confirmed as members of other unions.

Over 1 200 submissions were found to be invalid – nearly 450 currently accounted for as AMCU members, 95 were contractor employees, 45 applications were duplicated and over 580 were for former employees, while the balance of the submissions could not be allocated to employees.

Harmony Gold planned to undertake a detailed verification process prior to processing the 49 submissions it received after a review found the applications to be initially valid.

AMCU reached a representation level of 22% at Harmony’s Kalgold operations and, pending the verification assuring the union remained above the 20% threshold, an agreement for organisational rights would be signed.

Sibanye received over 5 000 submissions, the bulk of which were found to have been sub- mitted and rejected during prior verification processes.

A second verification found that 4 618 submissions were invalid for various reasons, including applications for former or contractor employees or duplicated applications.

Following a validation process, around 315 Sibanye employees had been confirmed as AMCU members.

The companies explained that information relating to representation was dealt with on a mine-by-mine basis and that every debit order request for union dues was “scrutinised and verified” by the companies.

Overall, a large percentage of the submissions submitted every month were found to be invalid on account of being incomplete, submitted on incorrect forms or comprising mistaken details; they were claimed for former employees or those working for contractors; they were for employees who had joined another union without notifying the first union; duplicated or triplicated submissions; the application of dual membership; and out-of-date submissions.

The Chamber of Mines noted that AMCU continued to gain recognition at the operations of a number of gold mining companies since being verified by a few operations in 2013, which allowed the union to participate in the 2013 wage negotiations.

The NUM last week welcomed – and fully supported - the verification results, calling on a similar process to be implemented within the platinum sector.

“We can . . . conclude that the NUM is still the majority union whether AMCU likes it or not. “We hope AMCU will accept these verified and audited results conducted by the Chamber of Mines. “We must all focus on current wage negotiations because our members are fighting for a living wage,” the union said in a statement.