JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Trade unions the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Uasa and Solidarity on Wednesday declared a dispute during the gold sector’s centralised wage negotiations process at the Chamber of Mines (CoM).

The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), which is also participating in the bargaining process, has requested additional information before stating its position.

The declaration by the unions came as the chamber, representing AngloGold Ashanti, Evander gold mine, Gold Fields, Harmony Gold, Rand Uranium, Sibanye Gold and Village Main Reef, improved its initial wage offer from 4% to 5% for both wages and accommodation-related allowances.

The CoM said the increase would raise the guaranteed pay of entry-level underground employees for major gold-producing companies to at least R9 000 a month, including basic wages, a living-out allowance, medical benefit and retirement contribution, and excluding statutory benefits, other allowances, profit share, overtime and bonuses.

The dispute would now be referred to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, which would provide parties the opportunity to engage, with the assistance of a mediator, for a 30-day period.

Solidarity general secretary Gideon du Plessis said in a statement that wage negotiations in the gold industry would only gain momentum if a process of “facilitation” was followed.

“Solidarity warned last week that this year's negotiations would be exceptionally challenging, and the fact that, even after numerous meetings, no agreement on the house rules could be reached, further confirms this assumption. We believe that facilitating should take place sooner rather than later to give negotiations a boost,’ he commented.

Du Plessis urged employers to put their negotiators in a “better bargaining position” so that an agreement could be reached.

The chamber confirmed in June that it had received wage demands for 2013 from all four representative unions, in which the NUM proposed a surface entry-level salary of R7 000 a month and an underground and opencast entry-level salary of R8 000 a month.

AMCU, which submitted its wage demands to the chamber on June 25, proposed, in addition to other high-cost items, a minimum entry-level wage of R11 500 for surface workers and R12 500 for underground surface workers. This excluded accommodation, bonuses and benefits.

Solidarity proposed a wage increase of 14% and increases to various other benefits, while Uasa proposed a wage increase of 18%.

The CoM said that, at the centralised level, it appeared that the NUM represented around 64.3% of employees in the relevant bargaining unit, AMCU represented around 17.2%, Uasa represented 6.9%, Solidarity represented 2.4%, while 8.9% had no union affiliation.