LABOUR & MINING Militancy will continue
year will be remembered as the year labour made headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Events began in January when rock drill operators at Impala Platinum’s Rustenburg operation downed tools in an illegal strike. Key issues that would define the state of labour relations for 2012 emerged during the six-week strike.
It became clear that miners, particularly those in the lower grades, had lost faith in the National Union of Mineworkers (Num), the majority union with a 30-year history.
In a precedent-setting move, workers refused to allow Num to negotiate on their behalf.
At the same time, the name of a smaller union operating in the platinum sector, the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (Amcu), began cropping up. Amcu was particularly accused of exploiting worker dissatisfaction to sign up new members.
Implats insisted it would negotiate only with the recognised union, Num, putting the suitability of SA’s majority union system under the spotlight.
The violence, intimidation, intolerance and lack of respect for the law that characterised the Implats strike was the precursor to the event that will taint SA’s labour relations for years to come: the shooting of 34 protesters at Marikana outside Rustenburg in August.
The protesters were linked to a wildcat strike by Lonmin platinum mine workers. The seven-week strike ultimately cost 46 people their lives.
Once again, disgruntled workers bypassed the majority union and instead negotiated through worker committees, church groups and the CCMA. At the end of their sevenweek strike they achieved wage increases of up to 22%.
Their success has fundamentally changed the labour relations game.
After the announcement of the Lonmin deal, other platinum miners called for similar wage increases. Then wildcat strikes, often accompanied by violence, broke out across the gold, iron ore, chrome and car-manufacturing sectors. By November 2012, farm workers in the Western Cape had joined the labour unrest.
Finance minister Pravin Gordhan admitted SA had lost an estimated R10bn to strikes in the platinum and gold mining sectors since the beginning of 2012.
Surprisingly, given the turbulence, the number of strike days lost in 2012 is estimated at around 3m.
According to Andrew Levy Employment Services, about 1,5m days were lost by the end of September. The projected figure for 2012 is significantly lower than the 6,2m working days lost in 2011, and the 14,6m lost in 2010, mainly due to the huge public-sector strike.
The figures are misleading. Though the number of days lost may be down, there is no doubt that SA will enter 2013 with its labour relations system in tatters. Collective bargaining structures appear to have crumbled in some sectors, as mining companies brought negotiations forward and bypassed recognised unions.
This is an indication of how