A strike is in the offing at Sibanye-Stillwater’s gold operations after workers affiliated to a coalition of mining unions voted to down tools in support of their demand for above-inflation wages.
The balloting of workers belonging to the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Uasa was held on Tuesday and overseen by officials of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).
In a report on the ballot process, which Business Day has seen, 62% of NUM and Uasa members voted in favour of a strike at Sibanye’s gold operations including Kloof, Driefontein, Beatrix and Cook, as well as Support Service operations.
Business Day understands that the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), whose membership was not balloted as its constitution calls for voting by a show of hands, also voted in favour of industrial action.
In the report, the CCMA’s national senior commissioner for collective bargaining, Haroun Docrat, said: “The observers in the presence of the CCMA team confirmed that none of the ballot boxes were tampered with, and were satisfied that the tally could commence.”
At 79%, NUM had the highest number of members who voted in favour of a strike, while only 31% of Uasa members voted yes.
A joint ballot box of NUM and Uasa showed that 86% of their membership supported the move to down tools.
A strike could have huge ramifications for Sibanye and the mining industry, which raked in bumper profits as a result of the global commodity price boom in 2021. The sector is crucial to the SA economy as it contributes about 9% to GDP, with about 450,000 people employed directly by the industry.
Sibanye is one of the world’s largest producers of platinum. In 2019, the company acquired Lonmin platinum mine. Lonmin was the site of the 2012 Marikana massacre when armed police gunned down 34 protesting Lonmin mineworkers who were demanding better wages and living conditions. Another 10 people, including security guards, were killed in the preceding week.
In a joint media briefing last Thursday, Amcu, Uasa, NUM and Solidarity indicated that they were getting ready to embark on a strike of more than 30,000 workers, after rejecting Sibanye’s revised wage offer of a R700 increase and a R100 increase in the living out allowance each year for three years, for underground and surface workers.
Another category of workers including artisans, miners and officials were to get increases of 5% a year over the course of the multiyear agreement.
On Wednesday, Solidarity said it had accepted the wage offer and had communicated their acceptance to the company in writing on Tuesday.
Solidarity’s deputy general secretary for mining, Riaan Visser, said they were no longer in dispute with the company and would not take part in the strike.
NUM, Amcu and Uasa have stuck to their guns, demanding an increase of R1,000 a month or 6% above the 4.9% inflation rate the SA Reserve Bank has forecast for 2022.
The company has said a strike could have “significant consequences” for its operations.
Business Day reported on Wednesday that Sibanye-Stillwater is at the centre of an escalating dispute with Appian Capital, with the mining giant saying the UK private equity outfit’s public statements to sue it for $1.2bn (R18.5bn) are superficial and aimed at tainting its image ahead of the annual results announcement.
Sibanye has been locked in a dispute with Appian since January, when the SA mining heavyweight backed out of a deal to pay $1.2bn for two mines owned by the buyout firm in Brazil on the grounds that a failure of part of the wall of the opencast mine had trashed the commercial merits of the transaction.
Update: March 3 2022
This story has been updated with more information.
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