Platinum CEOS move to get Amcu into talks
THE Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) will meet CEOs of platinum companies on Monday in a bid to break a deadlock over setting up a centralised bargaining structure for the sector.
Forming a centralised bargaining structure is regarded as crucial to bringing stability to the industry after a bruising year that rattled investor sentiment and left more than 40 people dead.
Soon after the Marikana killings last August, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu and Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant set up a working group to establish a centralised bargaining structure for the platinum sector, which has never had one, in an attempt to bring peace and stability to the troubled industry.
The Chamber of Mines wrote to Ms Shabangu two weeks ago requesting a meeting to discuss the partial success in setting
up the bargaining structure, as Amcu had refused to participate.
The chamber’s head of industrial relations, Elize Strydom, said there had been no response to the letter to Ms Shabangu. But Amcu’s letter requesting a meeting with only the CEOs was positively received. The union, which has taken the majority position on most platinum mines, agreed to a meeting on Monday.
“The purpose of the meeting is to understand why Amcu doesn’t want to participate in the centralised structure and to try convince them it is in the best interests of the workers and the industry that they do,” Ms Strydom said.
The talks, which started in November, faltered early after Amcu pulled out, citing provocative statements by its rival, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
Ms Strydom said Amcu sent a letter to the working group about two weeks ago saying it had a mandate from its members to negotiate wages directly with companies instead of in a centralised structure.
Platinum companies, the NUM and other smaller unions continued the talks and came up with an inprinciple agreement on a temporary, centralised bargaining structure.
“Even for the gold mines … there are still problems, so for the Chamber of Mines to say by taking platinum mines into centralised bargaining it will create peace, that’s misleading — it doesn’t have logic,” said Amcu national treasurer Jimmy Gama.
Asked if Amcu would return to talks if asked by the mineral resources and labour ministers, Mr Gama said: “We can’t respond now because we haven’t been approached. When we have, then we’ll decide.”
Ms Strydom said it would take a week to activate the temporary bargaining structure.
Mr Gama said Amcu would negotiate with individual platinum companies in coming weeks.
Lonmin and Impala Platinum are pushing hard for a revised recognition agreement to move away from the winner-takes-all model in force until the NUM was toppled from its dominant position on the platinum mines in the Rustenburg area.
Anglo American Platinum has accorded recognition rights to Amcu similar to those it had with the NUM, when it was the majority union.
Mr Gama said Amcu had referred the stalled recognition agreement at Lonmin to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) and would do the same for Implats.
Implats personnel head Johan Theron said the miner would welcome CCMA involvement. “It would not be a bad thing for us to go to the CCMA because they can broker a deal. The only thing is it will take time to go through that process and we need to start wage talks soon.”