The Sunday Times reports that members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) remain on strike at Sibanye-Stillwater's SA gold mines while a process to verify the membership of four unions at the producer is still underway.  

On Thursday, Amcu and Sibanye embarked on a process at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), but the dispute remains unresolved.  Joseph Mathunjwa, president of Amcu, said last week that talks at the CCMA were adjourned due to a disagreement over the interpretation of a judgment in late December relating to the strike.  At that time, Sibanye had sought to have the wage strike by Amcu declared unprotected and illegal after it said that 51% of unionised workers - represented by the National Union of Mineworkers, Solidarity and Uasa - had accepted the wage offer, enabling the company to extend the offer to all workers.  But on 21 December the Labour Court ruled in favour of Amcu and ordered the CCMA to facilitate a union membership verification process and report back to the court by 7 January 2019.  According to Mathunjwa, the CCMA commissioner has written to the judge to clarify certain sections of the judgment.  The strike by almost 15,000 Amcu workers has "affected the gold operations to varying extents", said Sibanye’s James Wellsted, with an update to be released "in due course".

• Read the original report by Ntando Thukwana in full at SA Labour News
• Read too, Amcu strike at Sibanye-Stillwater legal, labour court rules, at Mining Weekly

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page