ASA Metals plans to axe 2 000 jobs
ABOUT 2 000 mineworkers and contractors stand to lose their jobs as ASA Metals halts operations at its Dilokong chrome mine near Burgersfort in Limpopo.
The company said the process was unavoidable, despite the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) vowing to fight the retrenchments.
These latest jobs cuts come amidst thousands of job losses in the sector due to the fall in commodity prices, including ferrochrome.
If the retrenchment plan went ahead unchanged, only 317 workers would be retained while the potential for additional job losses with regards to contractors remained.
ASA blamed work stoppages on illegal strikes by employees, community protests and section 54 notices of the mine health safety act, for the position it found itself in.
In a letter to the NUM, ASA Metals said that a three-day unprotected strike in October last year by 253 members of the union that staged an underground sit-in had resulted in a 15 percent production loss.
However, ASA management said the mine was nowhere near shut-down. “The current position the company finds itself in is forcing it to seriously scale down its business activities, hence most of the companies’ processing and mining activities will be placed on care and maintenance,” said ASA metals’ human resources man- ager, Denzil Blignaut.
The company had suspended operations in October and was currently running maintenance on its furnace, Blignaut added.
‘Drastic action’
The NUM has requested that Minister of Mineral Resources, Mosebenzi Zwane intervene at the mine and has warned that the company’s “drastic action” would leave hundreds of mineworkers in a dire situation. It is estimated that a single miner supports around 10 people. The mine was also critical source of employment in the area.
The union said it was consulting its legal team on what action to embark on to force the mine to keep its doors open.
It also dismissed the company’s stance that strikes were behind the losses incurred.
Blignaut described the strike by workers three months ago as the “straw that broke the camel’s back”.
NUM North-East regional secretary, Phillip Mankge, said the company had been the architect of its own troubles. He mentioned ASA Metals had illegally locked out workers from its premises following the three-day underground sit-in.
“If the company cared about productivity, they would not have kept the people who wanted to work away. Instead they locked gates, saying they feared a repeat of the sit-in,” explained Mankge. – Additional reporting by ANA