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Strike threat grows as Sibanye-Stillwater cuts platinum jobs

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Sibanye StillwaterBL Premium writes that the likelihood of Sibanye-Stillwater, the world’s largest platinum miner, facing another crippling strike at its mines increased after it indicated it would lay off up to 5,270 people at the Lonmin assets it now owns. 

Sibanye is concurrently in wage talks with the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), the dominant union at its Rustenburg mines and those at Lonmin, which are now collectively called Marikana.  Amcu said on Wednesday it had received notification of the restructuring to remove nearly a fifth of the 26,568 jobs at Marikana.  Amcu, which has already declared a dispute in the platinum wage talks with Sibanye, fiercely opposed the company’s takeover of Lonmin, arguing the merger would result in large job losses.  It has also been critical of Sibanye’s proposed wage offer for employees at Marikana.  Sibanye said it was closing the East 1, West 1 and Hossy shafts as well as halting opencast mining, stopping two concentrators and removing duplicated jobs in the merged companies.  The cuts will come as a moratorium on retrenchments expires in December.  Trade union Solidarity was brutal in its assessment of the restructuring Sibanye was undertaking, laying the blame squarely on Amcu’s 2014 strike, which crippled Lonmin’s balance sheet irreparably, and on the management style of Magara.  "Magara was more focused on keeping Amcu happy than focusing on the mines’ sustainability and effective management," Solidarity’s Gideon du Plessis said.  The mining sector lost 36,000 jobs in the second quarter, according to Statistics SA.

  • Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Allan Seccombe at BusinessLive (paywall access only)


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