Parties differ over dismissed worker

A LONMIN employee was not allowed to return to work despite having won a case at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said yesterday. “NUM is extremely disgusted by Lonmin’s refusal to allow our member to go back to work after she won the case to be reinstated at the CCMA,” the union said. According to union spokesman Livhuwani Mammburu, the employee was dismissed in June last year after management and rival union, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), allegedly accused her of submitting fraudulent union membership forms. “Our shop stewards were harassed last year by the company under the pretext of rigging membership, an allegation which NUM rejected,” Mammburu said. She won the case at the CCMA and the award was issued in August. Mammburu said the employee was supposed to go back to work two weeks ago, but management would not allow her. The company told her there was information that Amcu would not allow her underground. The NUM was worried and concerned that a multinational mining company such as Lonmin was allowing the intimidation to happen. Lonmin spokesman Sue Vey said the employee had been reinstated. “There has not been any point where she wasn’t allowed back at work. She obviously had to undergo medicals, and so on before she could return to work,” Vey said. – Sapa