Platinum wage negotiations at Sibanye-Stillwater this year are expected to be especially tough after majority unions at the group’s gold mines unveiled plans for a secondary strike to up the ante in their fight for higher wages.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (Amcu) said this week they had given notice for a secondary strike at Sibanye-Stillwater’s platinum operations.
The prospect of a secondary strike comes as the impasse between the unions and the company entered its second month, with both hardening their positions.
The current strike follows a five-month strike at Sibanye’s gold operations in 2019 and the adverse impact of Covid.
Amcu general secretary Jeff Mphahlele said he expected about 35,000 employees at the Rustenburg and Marikana operations to down tools as part of the secondary strike.
“We are taking the secondary strike to every outlet of Sibanye-Stillwater after Easter. If you think of the 35,000 people at the Rustenburg and Marikana operations, the impact will be huge.”
Amcu and NUM said 30,000 of their members are on strike at the gold operations right now, while the company said 23,000 people are on strike.
NUM general secretary William Mabapa said the unions were convening shop steward council meetings in the platinum operation branches to gauge the appetite for a secondary strike.
“For now, they do not have a problem. It is a matter of waiting for the Easter weekend and after that, we will process everything.”
We will not be coerced into acceding to demands which are not inflation related, [are] unaffordable and threaten the sustainability of our operations
— Richard Cox, executive vice-president at Sibanye
The unions are also applying to authorities for permits to lead marches to the JSE and the Union Buildings, said Mphahlele.
NUM and Amcu want Sibanye to agree to a R1,000 a month increase in basic wages for entry-level employees over three years. Sibanye’s final offer is a R700 a month increase in basic annual wages each year over three years. Solidarity and UASA have accepted a 5% increase for miners, artisans and officials.
Sibanye said the R700 offer amounts to a 6.8% increase in year one, 6.4% in year two and 6% in year three and will add R1.5bn to the wage bill at the gold operations.
It added that the R1,000 a month wage hike demand amounted to a 9.8% increase in year one, 8.8% in year two and 8.2% in year three for entry-level employees, and would add R2.5bn to the wage bill.
It said the additional R1bn in the wage base from the union demands equals a R40,000/kg increase in costs and threatens the viability of the shafts.
According to the company, the guaranteed salary of entry-level employees on average is R16,036 a month, which includes basic pay, holiday leave allowance, a living out allowance, and provident fund contribution.
The company, which expected up to 27,000kg from its gold operations in 2022, expects to have lost about 2,000kg in the strike so far.
Richard Cox, executive vice-president at Sibanye’s South African gold operations, said the group had not yet received notice for a secondary strike at its platinum group metals (PGMs) operations and would take legal action in the event this is given.
He said wage negotiations at the PGM operations in SA were scheduled to begin any time between June and July.
Cox said striking gold employees had lost about R790m, while the fiscus had lost about R90m in PAYE, income tax and salary-related levies, and significantly more in lost taxes and mining royalties.
“We will not be coerced into acceding to demands which are not inflation related, [are] unaffordable and threaten the sustainability of our operations. In this regard, any intensification of the strike by the unions will have no impact on our position of safeguarding the interests of all stakeholders.”
Cox echoed comments by Sibanye CEO Neal Froneman, who told the PGM Industry Day conference earlier this month that the strike was not about gold wages, but about setting the scene for what will happen in PGMs.
Froneman said the group could not let buoyant commodity prices “confuse us” in terms of wages and salaries.
“So we will take a firm line, whether it is wages and Eskom increases. We will be robust, and probably as a country we should nip the above-inflation increases in the bud. It is unfortunate that many other people become the meat in the sandwich for the wrong reasons.”
Mabapa said the mandate was to get an above-CPI increase due to food, transport and medical inflation. “An increase in economic terms is anything above inflation. For an employee to survive, he must get an increase that is above inflation.”
Strategically, I think the company made a big mistake. It created a platform for tension and another strike
— Solidarity general secretary Gideon du Plessis
Mabapa said NUM had signed five-year wage deals in which monthly basic salaries would be increased by more than R1,000 a month with companies including Siyanda Bakgatla, Royal Bafokeng Platinum and Northam Platinum.
“We started negotiating with Anglo American Platinum last week and the first offer was more than R1,000. Today, Anglo is going to table another offer,” he said.
Solidarity general secretary Gideon du Plessis said the company “could have created the right atmosphere, so now there is so much animosity going into the platinum negotiations. Strategically, I think the company made a big mistake. It created a platform for tension and another strike.”
He said 2022 would be a rough year for Sibanye-Stillwater. “From a labour relations point of view, it will be in the hotspot. They have been pleading poverty right through the gold wage negotiations, saying they have marginal shafts and mines and their lives will come to an end. It is likely that we will soon have section 189 notices as well.”
Du Plessis said Solidarity had been inundated by visits to its offices from NUM and Amcu members wanting to join up, but there was a specific protocol that a union could never be a strikebreaker.
“We say after the strike, anybody who wishes to join us can join us, but at this stage we will honour the union protocol and not sign on anybody. We will hold on to their subscription forms, if they still wish to join us when everything is back to normal that is fine, we do not weaken striking unions.
“Though we would like to see the strike end as soon as possible, we will never join hands with Sibanye on a labour-related issue. We will definitely not participate in labour relations initiatives from their side, whose aim is to break a strike.”
Labour lawyer Michael Bagraim said employees were always the biggest losers in protracted strikes due to the loss of income. “There should be legislation to ensure that, before people can call a strike, a fund should be established to ensure employees receive at least a third of their salary to survive,” he said.
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