Mathunjwa and co firm Amcu grip

Vote for top posts uncontested

Joseph Mathunjwa is set to retain his position as president of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu).

The union is set to elect its new leadership during a longawaited conference that got under way in Johannesburg yesterday. The conference will end tomorrow with the election of the new leadership.

In March, labour relations registrar Lehlohonolo Molefe issued a notice of his intention to deregister Amcu, saying the union had violated its own constitution, a move the militant union described at the time as a political attack aimed at destroying it.

Amcu general secretary Jeff Mphahlele said the union was “targeted” by the labour registrar because it was a progressive and militant trade union and the biggest in the platinum sector.

Molefe said Amcu had not held an elective conference for five years and had effectively ceased to function as a “genuine trade union” as envisaged in the Labour Relations Act.

But on September 1, Molefe ditched plans to deregister the union after a number of written representations from the leadership of the union, the largest in SA’s platinum industry with more than 200,000 members. In April, after almost five months on strike, Amcu ended its industrial action at Sibanye-Stillwater where it had been demanding R1,000 yearly wage increments for the next three years, while the National Union of Mineworkers, Solidarity, and the United Association of South Africa accepted an increase of R750 per year for the next three years for the period July 1 2018 to June 30 2021.

Amcu rose to prominence when the union led mineworkers on a protracted and violent strike that led to the Marikana massacre in August 2012.

Yesterday, Amcu head of organisational development Krister Janse van Rensburg said the positions of president, deputy president, national chair for health and safety, national treasurer, and national chair for education, were all uncontested.

Today, labour and employment minister Thulas Nxesi is expected to address the conference, followed by a keynote address by Mathunjwa.