JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and gold mining company Harmony have May 2 as the return-to-work date following South Africa’s Covid-19 lockdown.

This agreement followed a meeting at Harmony’s offices in Randfontein on Tuesday, NUM general secretary David Kolekile Sipunzi said in a media release to Mining Weekly.

While Harmony Gold’s nine underground gold mines have been on temporary care and maintenance since March 31, its surface retreatment operations and opencast mine have continued to function, collectively producing between 650 kg and 700 kg in the initial 21 days.

NUM stated that the Johannesburg- and New York-listed Harmony had agreed to pay workers their salaries for the entire lockdown period.

The May 1 Workers Day holiday would be used by workers to travel from their various homes to Harmony’s 13 places of work, while locally based personnel would be free to go to their places of work on May 1 for coronavirus screening. Those travelling from afar would be screened on May 2.

Stringent measures at all operations had been formulated to ensure worker health and safety, with intensive screening isolating those found to be positive and hospitalising those found to be sick.

Safety compliance was paramount and compromise would not be tolerated.

A major education programme would be implemented and health workers would be required to have fitness certificates to ensure that they were themselves tested regularly for Covid-19.

Sanitisers and masks would be available 24 hours, seven days a week.

Physical distancing would be strictly enforced and body scanners deployed to take the temperatures of 30 employees at a time. Those whose temperatures were found to be above the normal of 37 °C would be isolated.

A broad-spectrum disinfectant being tested would likely be used to sanitise buses, lifts and mine cages.

“We expect all mining companies in South Africa to adhere to the strict health and safety measures in fighting the virus in their operations,” NUM stated.

Where strict measures were not in place, NUM members would refuse to work.

“We will not hesitate to name and shame mining companies that fail to adhere to the strict health and safety measures required to fight the virus. We also call on the mining companies to make available some of their clinics and hospitals to treat employees who are sick and infected,” NUM added.