BL Premium reports that as industrial action enters its fourth week on Wednesday at Sibanye-Stillwater’s gold operations, striking members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) are set to lose a month’s pay.
The lowest-paid surface or underground employees, who take home about R16,000 a month, had by Tuesday lost R15,456 of their guaranteed income, which includes basic pay, holiday leave and living out allowance as well as provident fund contribution. Labour analyst Michael Bagraim commented Amcu strikes were known to go on for a long time to the detriment of its members. “It’s a huge sacrifice for members because they forfeit their salaries while union officials continue to draw their salaries ... even if NUM and Amcu get the increases they are asking for, it’s going to take them a very long time to catch up on what they have lost. It makes no sense ... to continue with the strike. Workers have already lost one month.” Amcu and the NUM are demanding R1,000 more a month for the lowest-paid workers as well as 6% for so-called ‘miners, artisans and officials’. They are also demanding a R100 increase in the living-out allowance, which takes their pay demand to an increase of R1,100 a month over a period of three years. Solidarity and Uasa, the smaller unions at Sibanye, last month accepted the company’s revised offer, which resulted in surface and underground workers receiving monthly rises of R700 in pay and R100 in the living-out allowance over the course of the multiyear agreement, and a 5% pay increase for ‘miners, artisans and officials’.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
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