Striking members of the two largest unions at Sibanye-Stillwater’s gold operations are set to lose a month’s pay as industrial action enters its fourth week on Wednesday.
The lowest-paid surface or underground employees, who take home about R16,000 a month, had by Tuesday lost R15,456 of their guaranteed income, which includes basic pay, holiday leave and living out allowance as well as provident fund contribution.
While Sibanye has said it is too soon to give accurate numbers of what it lost because of the strike, its production target for the year is between 813,000oz and 873,000oz. This means the company could have lost at least 67,750oz by Wednesday if the industrial action continues for a full month.
Labour analyst Michael Bagraim said Amcu strikes are known to go on for a long time to the detriment of its members.
“It’s a huge sacrifice for members because they forfeit their salaries while union officials continue to draw their salaries ... even if NUM and Amcu get the increases they are asking for, it’s going to take them a very long time to catch up on what they have lost,” said Bagraim.
“It makes no sense ... to continue with the strike. Workers have already lost one month.... It’s a very sad situation because those who are caught in the middle are strikers, they are the ones suffering, and their families.”
If the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) accepted Sibanye’s revised pay offer, it could lift wages of lowest-paid employees to nearly R19,000 in the final year of the agreement.
Above inflation
Solidarity and the United Association of SA (Uasa), the smaller unions at Sibanye, last month accepted the revised offer, which resulted in surface and underground workers receiving rises of R700 in pay and R100 in the living-out allowance a year for three years, and a 5% pay increase for artisans, miners and officials over the course of the multiyear agreement,
NUM and Amcu are demanding R1,000 more a month for the lowest-paid workers as well as 6% for miners, artisans and officials — above the headline inflation rate of 5.8% the Reserve Bank forecast for 2022.
They are also demanding a R100 increase in the living-out allowance, which takes their pay demand to R1,100 a year for three years.
Strikers have lost more than R440m to date since downing tools on March 9.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said at the NUM national congress last week that mineworkers should not end up losers due to strikes.
Efficient Group chief economist Dawie Roodt said union leaders “often get their members in a predicament by leading them on strikes for weeks and they lose out on wages. It simply doesn’t make sense to keep on striking.
“We have a commodity cycle going on, the SA mining industry is doing well ... you’ve got to make hay while the sun shines.
Accepted terms
Amcu and NUM are striking while the mining sector “is supposed to be firing on all cylinders. The [commodity] prices are very good, it’s an opportunity to drive the mining sector and SA economy,” he said.
Amcu’s five-month strike from November 2018 at Sibanye’s gold operations cost the company R1.6bn and 110,000oz in lost production of gold, while nine people died. Workers forfeited R1.5bn in pay during industrial action after which Amcu accepted terms that had been accepted by NUM, Solidarity and the Uasa.
In its strike update, Sibanye said that by staying on strike until May 1, lowest-paid employees would have lost the money they would have earned from the revised offer over three years. “This means that you will earn the same for the next three years as you earned in 2021, even if the offer is accepted,” the company said.
Another long strike could mean Sibanye does not benefit from the gold price leaping from a low of $1,782 at the beginning of 2022 to $2,070, its highest price since August 2020.
The mining sector contributes about 9% to GDP and directly employs about 450,000 people.
NUM general secretary William Mabapa did not respond to a request for comment.
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