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BL Premium reports that the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) wants mothballed mines to be reopened to boost employment.
The union says it will engage the Department of Mineral Resources & Energy (DMRE) to conduct a full audit of mines under care and maintenance in achieving its goal. The mining industry, which has enjoyed bumper profits due to a global surge in commodity prices, created 25,000 jobs during the last quarter of 2021. Newly elected NUM general secretary William Mabapa said: “We want government to tell mining bosses to reopen those mines or sell them to create jobs. Some of these mines are mothballed, or placed under care and maintenance, while there is still good ore that can be mined. Getting those mines running again could resolve the unemployment crisis ... and help improve our membership.” More than 50 mines in the Free State, North West, and Limpopo are under care and maintenance. They have the potential of creating about 50,000 jobs, Mabapa asserted. On membership recruitment he indicated: “The one issue that we need to work hard on is to create a strategy for recruitment. We plan to have 30,000 members in the metals sector in the coming three years. That would take our membership to 200,000. Probably in six to nine years we could see NUM going back to its membership of 300,000 that we used to have in 2012.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
- Read too, Here’s how NUM president aims to unify branches and return to ‘glory days’, at The Citizen
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page