Today's Labour News

BL Premium reports that the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union’s (Amcu’s) plans to effectively increase its membership at Sibanye-Stillwater’s Lonmin platinum mine hit a snag when the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) ruled earlier this month that its agreement with the management was invalid and unenforceable.

The agency shop agreement between the parties would have caused Amcu to rake in hundreds of thousands of rand in membership fees from its members, nonunionised workers, and employees who belonged to other unions. Amcu entered into such an agreement with Lonmin — owned by Sibanye-Stillwater — in April 2019. The agreement was challenged by a coalition of other unions. In June 2019, the Labour Court ruled that the agreement was invalid because it indicated only that “employees who are not members of any trade union shall not be compelled to be a member of Amcu” and made no provision for employees who were “members of other unions and failed to provide that such employees were not compelled to become members of Amcu”. The ConCourt found that an agency shop agreement was binding only if it provided that employees who were not members of the representative trade union were not compelled to become members of that trade union. The agreement indicated only “that employees who are not members of any trade union shall not be compelled to be a member of Amcu”. The deduction for the agency fund was made by Lonmin in June 2019 for the first time, but then the Labour Court’s instruction was received to stop the deduction in July 2019. The deductions were stopped and the amounts refunded to affected employees in July 2019.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)

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