Sibanye workers ask Ramaphosa to intervene
Striking miners want salary increases
It’s exactly a week since striking Sibanye Stillwater workers took their grievances with their employer all the way to the highest-ranking office in the country – the office of the president.
The mineworkers have been camped outside the Union Buildings, calling on President Cyril Ramaphosa to intervene in their ongoing wage protest.
Sibanye Stillwater’s workers downed tools demanding a R1,000 salary increase backdated for three years, which they claim they were supposed to have received in June last year as part of an agreed threeyear wage increase settlement.
More than 2,000 workers occupied the Union Buildings singing Struggle songs and waving placards.
The protest is led by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) members.
NUM’s Khaya Klaas, 39, from Kloof in Westonaria, who has been a mineworker for eight years, told Sowetan that they gave the government a memorandum of demand on May 1 and they have not received a response.
“We want a reasonable 6% increase, as well as a R100 allowance and the R1,000 as mineworkers,” said Klaas.
“We believe that it is an affordable offer, more especially now that the company is doing better. Gold is flourishing in the market, they make a lot of money out of our sweat and tears yet we earn about R10,000 and we don’t think that when we ask them to at least make it R11,000 it is too much,” said Klaas.
Lulamile Ndia, 45, who is based in Carletonville and has been working for 28 years, said that they won’t stop protesting until Ramaphosa addresses them personally.
“We need urgent intervention by the government, no matter how long it will take. We have all the time in the world to sit here,” said Ndia.
“We’ve been sleeping in buses and cars since Wednesday. We don’t have enough food to eat and other workers need to take their medication.
“Ramaphosa is our last hope. He promised us that he will engage with the mine’s executives during his visit at Royal Bafokeng Stadium on Workers’ Day [May 1]. We have tried negotiating but now it’s beyond our control.”