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The Sunday Independent writes that Sibanye-Stillwater’s SA gold operations, battered by a five-month strike by Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) members, might have to lay off nearly 7,000 workers in a restructuring.
Sibanye senior vice-president for investor relations, James Wellsted, said last week that a three-month process for the start of negotiations with trade unions about the proposed restructuring of the gold operations had begun. Potentially, 5,800 employees and 800 contract workers might be laid off. Wellsted indicated that the restructuring was necessitated by factors that had affected the mining industry’s cost structures, including high electricity tariff increases, blackouts, strike action and above-inflation wage increases. The five-month strike by Amcu at Sibanye’s SA gold operations, which left nine people dead, ended last Wednesday. Amcu ultimately agreed to the same deal as three other unions, as well as a R4,000 cash or voucher payment and an optional R5, 000 soft loan to employees, to be repaid over a year. The union also agreed to developing a plan to ensure a safe start and ramp-up of production post-strike. Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa commented that the agreement had set up a good platform for negotiations on the restructuring and the prevention of job losses.
- Read more of Edward West’s The Sunday Independent report of 21 April 2019 at SA Labour News
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page