Implats commits to meeting union
Dineo Faku IMPALA Platinum (Implats) has committed to push for a meeting with the leadership of its main labour union to resolve a month-long strike that has caused losses of production and deaths at its Rustenburg operations.
Group executive Johan Theron said yesterday: “Implats is urgently consulting the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) leadership and is hoping to convene a meeting to discuss the matter as soon as possible.”
He said the rehiring process had continued at Implats yesterday. Of the more than 17 200 workers who had been fired during the illegal strike, to date 8 368 had been re-engaged, of whom 1 074 were rock drill operators. The total Rustenburg employee complement was now 24 168 compared with about 32 000 before the strike.
Cosatu and the NUM would meet with management today to find a settlement to the dispute, said Solly Phetoe, Cosatu’s general secretary in the North West. He said employees were unhappy with the conditions of service, which related to the new contracts implemented after rehiring.
Phetoe said Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and NUM president Senzeni Zokwana would host another mass meeting with employees at shaft 8 today, after which a meeting with management would be held where he hoped a settlement would be reached.
“We don’t want re-employment of the workers as new employees because, when they re-apply under new conditions of employment, it means they forfeit a lot of those benefits.
“That’s the biggest problem, many workers are turned down from rehiring because they don’t accept new terms of employment by management,” Phetoe said.
He complained that Implats management had created a “mess” by giving miners an 18 percent bonus as part of an incentive to retain their labour.
On Tuesday Vavi criticised Implats for awarding the 18 percent bonus incentive only to miners, and described the exclusion of the rock drill operators from the bonus as sowing division among the labour force and within the NUM.
Most importantly, Vavi urged employees to return to work and vowed that Cosatu and the NUM would call on Implats to award all employees the 18 percent incentive.
Cosatu would also fight to ensure that rehired employees retained all benefits, including pension and annual leave allocations and membership of the multibillion employee share ownership plan, Vavi pledged.
Theron said yesterday: “During the NUM’S mass meeting on Tuesday at Implats’ Rustenburg mine, a few statements were made which are inaccurate and of grave concern to management.”
Implats, the second-biggest producer of platinum, said it had lost 60 000 ounces of platinum production and R1.2 billion in revenue since the beginning of an illegal strike on January 20, started by 5 000 rock drill operators over the pay dispute.