ANA reports that the governing African National Congress (ANC) said on Wednesday that it was emphatically against any retrenchments in both the private and public sectors, and that it was unsustainable for mineworkers to continue to bear the brunt of job losses.
The party called on mining companies to find an alternative course of action. Gold Fields on Tuesday announced a restructuring at its South Deep operation, which it said would result in about 1,560 jobs being cut. The news came slightly over a week after Impala Platinum said it would be cutting 13,000 jobs over two years as part of a strategic restructuring process. The ANC said the mining sector was the backbone of industrial development and that the South African economy relied on it. “Over the years, the mining sector has been shedding jobs, and the recent pronouncement of more than 50,000 purported job losses across the board is shocking, as every mineworker benefits seven or more family members,” the party indicated. The ANC called on the sector to “urgently convene a dialogue aimed at finding alternative solutions to this impasse.”
- Read this report in full at The Citizen
- Read too, ANC wants urgent meeting with partners about job losses in mining, at BusinessLive
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page