Implats rehires to stop clash as more miners killed

VIOLENT protests have claimed the lives of two more workers at the Rustenburg operations of Impala Platinum (Implats), while the group capitulated yesterday to demands to rehire the 17 200 miners fired during a pay dispute.

North West police spokesman Thulani Ngubane said the body of a miner with a bullet wound was found inside shaft number six yesterday morning and another died from injuries sustained during clashes between police and protesters.

Yet another was shot in the thigh, and seven others were injured in battles yesterday.

Last week the body of a naked and brutalised man was discovered dead in a hostel.

About 7 000 of the workers have been rehired so far.

On January 20, about 5 000 rock drill operators went on strike over a pay dispute. A court order declared the strike illegal, but even more workers joined the protests amid fierce intimidation.

One of the reasons for the illegal strike is rivalry between unions at Implats. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is the only recognised labour organisation at the mining house.

Meanwhile, a smaller union, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), has been accused of using the illegal stayaways to increase its membership.

Alice Lourens, a spokeswoman at Implats, said the strike was not about wages, but rather the emergence of Amcu as a rival union to NUM.

“To date, no formal wage demands have been tabled by NUM, which represents the vast majority of workers on the mine, or any other representative body. Instead, we have seen the emergence of a new rival union – Amcu,” Lourens said.

Mining experts believe a resolution may take months.

“I am not predicting a quick resolution to this issue,” Deirdre Venter, a partner at law firm Webber Wentzel, said yesterday. “A similar strike at Lonmin’s Karee Mine in April last year took months to resolve.”

Venter said that if the parties had not already done so, they should urgently make use of the dispute resolution mechanisms in the Labour Relations Act to engage with one another.

However, Lesiba Seshoka, a spokesman at NUM, dismissed suggestions that a meeting should be held with Amcu and the platinum producer.

“We won’t do that. As far as we are concerned, NUM is the only recognised labour union at Implats. We cannot ask outside people for help.

“The problem requires law enforcement agencies to arrest those responsible for the violence,” he said.

Implats has lost 80 000 ounces of production at its flagship Rustenburg operation, which is the world’s largest platinum mine and accounts for about 60 percent of the company’s output. The disruptions are one of the causes of an 18 percent rise in the spot platinum price since the start of the year.

Cadiz Securities analyst Peter Major said Implats was bearing the brunt of the protests by unions. As a result of the strike’s bloodshed, Major believed Implats would give in to the demands of employee unions to end the protests.