Following an announcement by trade unions the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) on April 12 that they intend to ramp up strike action at Sibanye-Stillwater’s South African operations, the miner is urging the union leadership to reconsider their actions in the interests of striking employees.

Sibanye states that the NUM and AMCU strike action at its gold operations has, over the past 36 days, attracted “very low employee participation” at picketing sites.

Sibanye South Africa gold operations executive VP Richard Cox says because of the strike, employees are subject to the principle of “no work, no pay”, in accordance with the Labour Relations Act.

As such, he says, striking employees have lost a cumulative R790-million in wages, while government has lost about R90-million in pay-as-you-earn, income tax and salary-related levies.

“Significantly more [is being] lost [in] taxes and mining royalties.”

Further, striking category four to eight employees have already lost more than the cumulative value of the final increase offered by Sibanye over the first two years of the wage period, as well as the cumulative value of the R300-a-month-difference between the company’s offer and the unions’ demand over the full three-year period.

Should the strike continue until the end of April, affected employees would have lost all value they could have gained from a wage increase, the miner reveals in a statement.

The offer made to the unions and subsequently accepted by Uasa and Solidarity in February is “fair” and considers inflationary living costs, Sibanye reiterates.

The miner’s offer for category four to eight workers of a R700-a-month increase in basic wages a year for a period of three years amounts to a 6.8% increase in the first year, 6.4% in the second and 6% in the third year.

This offer will add R1.5-billion to Sibanye’s wage bill for its South African gold operations.

However, AMCU’s and the NUM’s R1 000 increase demand amounts to a 9.8% increase in the first year, 8.8% in the second and 8.2% in the third year. This, the miner says, is well above inflation and will add R2.5-billion to Sibanye’s wage bill.

On an operational level, the additional R1-billion in the wage base arising from the unions' demands is equivalent to an increase of about R40 000/kg of gold produced. Such an increase, the miner says, would erode its R46 443/kg all-inclusive sustaining cost margin achieved in 2021, thereby threatening the sustainability of its domestic gold operations.

In addition, such a deterioration in profitability has the potential to negatively impact all stakeholders, including employees.

Nonetheless, Cox notes that Sibanye will not be coerced into acceding to demands which are not inflation related, unaffordable and threaten the sustainability of its operations. “In this regard, any intensification of the strike by the unions will have no impact on our position of safeguarding the interests of all stakeholders.”

Despite the NUM and AMCU’s announcement of plans to intensify strike action and expand it to all of Sibanye’s South African operations, Sibanye says it has not yet received notification of any secondary strike by the NUM and AMCU at its local platinum group metals (PGM) operations, but will take the appropriate legal action in the event that such notification is given.

Wage negotiations at the miner’s South African PGM operations are only scheduled to start in June or July as per previous years.

Meanwhile, Sibanye notes that the unity displayed by the unions after years of often-violent inter-union rivalry is welcome.

Barring some instances of intimidation and lawlessness, the general discipline shown by union members and the prevailing of peace during strike actions is a “pleasing change” from the inter-union rivalry, violence and intimidation that characterised the 2018/19 strike, the miner says.

“We hope this level of maturity will be maintained.”