This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.
BL Premium reports that employers in the coal industry have withdrawn from the centralised bargaining process under the auspices of the Minerals Council SA (MCSA) and have informed trade unions that wages will be negotiated at company level in the future.
Centralised bargaining in coal (and gold mining) has taken place for decades, with members of the Council (previously known as the Chamber of Mines) negotiating in a joint sector forum. But the MCSA says that ownership in the coal industry has changed so much in the past 25 years that centralised bargaining no longer makes sense. Back in the 1980s, there were only six mining companies which together owned the entire coal industry, but now there are 21 different employers. “The last rounds or two of the centralised coal negotiations have involved only seven of the 21 employers. Secondly, even where bargaining has been centralised, different agreements have been reached with different companies and sometimes even with different mines owned by the same company,” a MCSA spokesperson said on Wednesday. The four recognised trade unions that negotiate coal wages through the MCSA are unanimously opposed to the decision, but as the MCSA is a voluntary association, the unions have little recourse. The United Association of SA (Uasa) has appealed to parliament’s portfolio committee on mineral resources and energy to intervene on their behalf. Solidarity’s Riaan Visser said the union had been hoping for more engagement. Wage talks in the gold sector will continue to take place at a centralised level. There are no centralised wage talks for the platinum sector.
- Read the full original of the above report by Carol Paton at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page