Mining Weekly reports that the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on Tuesday declared a wage dispute with the Minerals Council SA (previously called the Chamber of Mines) in the gold mining wage negotiations.  

This came after the MCSA presented a conditional revised wage offer, subject to trade unions removing their other ‘high cost’ demands from the table.  For the first year of a proposed three-year deal, the conditional offers by the four gold producers covered in the centralised talks ranged between 6.2% and 8.2% for so-called ‘category 4’ underground employees and between 4% and 5% for so-called ‘miners and artisans, and officials’.  The NUM’s dispute will be referred to the CCMA for conciliation and was one step away from legal, protected strike action, the union stated.  Trade union Solidarity, meanwhile, said that the conditional revised offer was “an insult to skilled employees”.  Welcoming the offers for ‘category 4 to 8’ employees, Solidarity general secretary Gideon du Plessis said:  “Although the offers are conditional, Solidarity rejects the offer in principle because of its discriminatory nature.  The artisans and more senior employees cannot accept that they are to receive smaller salary increases in order to subsidise other post levels’ increases.”  Solidarity said it would continue to negotiate with the MCSA.  Talks were expected to continue on Wednesday.

• Read this report in full at Mining Weekly
• Read the MCSA’s press statement at Gold Wage Negotiations
• Read the NUM’s press statement Politicsweb
• Read Solidarity’s press statement at SA Labour News

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page