A coalition of disgruntled mining unions said it was gearing up for a “massive strike” at Sibanye-Stillwater after its membership rejected the company’s latest revised wage offer of R700 each year for three years for underground and surface workers.
The company has also proposed a R100 increase in the living out allowance in each year of the multiterm agreement.
According to the proposal, artisans, miners and officials would have received 5% each year over the multiyear agreement.
In a joint media briefing in Boksburg on Thursday, leaders of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Solidarity and said their members want an increase of R1,000 per month or 6%, above the 4.9% inflation rate the SA Reserve Bank has forecast for 2022.
If the strike goes ahead it could hurt a sector that rode on the back of the global commodity price boom in 2021 and helped cushion the SA economy, which has been battered by Covid-19.
The sector contributes about 9% to GDP, with about 450,000 people directly employed by the industry.
Finance minister Enoch Godongwana underscored the role mining plays in the economy, saying the government estimated tax revenue for 2021/2022 to be R1.55-trillion, “R62bn higher than our estimates from four months ago, and R182bn higher than our estimates from last year’s budget”.
“This follows a shortfall of R176bn for 2020/2021 when compared to the 2020 budget forecasts. This positive surprise has come mainly from the mining sector due to higher commodity prices,” Godongwana said.
During the briefing, Amcu general secretary Jeff Mphahlele said the four unions are getting ready to embark on a “massive strike of more than 30,000 workers” at Sibanye’s gold operations.
The threat by unions to embark on a strike has been lingering for weeks, with Amcu, NUM and members electing to down tools during a mass meeting held at Carletonville on February 14.
The balloting of the unions’ membership will be held on March 1 and will be overseen by officials from the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). If the members elect to down tools, the unions will serve the gold miner with a 48-hour strike notice.
Mphahlele said the unions were disappointed that Sibanye is “pleading poverty ... against the backdrop of its performance on the market”.
The trade unions were disappointed by Sibanye’s “intimidation tactics”, he said, stressing that the company had been seen deploying armoured vehicles and “thousands of heavy-handed security forces” around its operations.
Instead of splurging money on “militaristic and heavy-handed security forces”, the company should instead spend it on paying workers what is due to them, he said.
divisional manager Franz Sterhring said the gold sector used to bargain centrally. “Currently, with the decentralised situation, Harmony Gold’s rates are far ahead of Sibanye. Sibanye is out of sync and that is not acceptable from a union’s point of view,” he said.
Solidarity deputy general secretary for mining Riaan Visser said there was no sufficient mandate from the union’s membership to accept the 5% wage offer, saying the demand for 6% still stands.
The unions approached the CCMA in November 2021 to apply for a strike certificate after wage talks between the parties deadlocked. That was after they rejected a revised proposal by Sibanye-Stillwater, made on November 18, which would have given the lowest-paid employees increases of R570-R670 over three years.
According to that proposal, miners, artisans and officials would have received increases of 4.5%, 4.9% and 4.9% during the three-year term.
Sibanye, which has said a strike would be devastating to its operations, has maintained that the unions’ wage demands were unaffordable and would add R2.5bn to the wage bill by July 2023.
Update: February 24 2022
More information has been added to this article.
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