Bloomberg reports that the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), which is SA’s biggest platinum mining union, will next week start submitting wage demands to PGM (platinum group metals) producers as workers push for a share of the windfall profits brought by rallying metal prices.
Amcu’s Jimmy Gama indicated that negotiations for three-year wage deals with producers, including Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), Sibanye-Stillwater and Impala Platinum (Implats), were expected to start in the first week of April. He declined to disclose the union’s demands, but did comment as follows: “The platinum companies made huge profits in 2021 and they continue doing so”. PGM producers announced record dividends after the price of palladium and rhodium — produced alongside platinum in SA — rallied. Still, the companies warned that a wage settlement with about 163 000 workers must not threaten the long-term viability of a key export industry. Union demands must be balanced “through future PGMs commodity price cycles and to avoid wage increases which could place many jobs at risk,” said an Amplats spokeswoman. Amcu, which in 2014 led the longest ever platinum mining strike in SA, plans to negotiate jointly with the rival National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Gama said.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Felix Njini at Moneyweb
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