According to a document obtained by Business Maverick, members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) at Sibanye-Stillwater’s Marikana platinum mine are demanding wage hikes of up to almost 40%.

A decade after the murdered Marikana strikers demanded a basic wage of R12,500 a month, the rallying cry is now R20,000 a month. Amcu’s Marikana demands were sent on 28 March to Sibanye, which has said it does not plan to officially start wage talks before June — in line with normal timing. But they give a clear indication of what Amcu is targeting at a time when it is united with its former arch-rival, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), in a combined strike at Sibanye’s SA gold operations that began almost two months ago. The united front posed by Amcu and NUM suggests that NUM’s own demands from Sibanye’s platinum group metals (PGM) division will be in a similar vein. The key demands outlined in the Amcu document are as follows: “The entry-level minimum for all underground workers to be R20,000.00 [Categories 4 – 9]”, while for more skilled workers such as artisans the demand is for a “15% increase on the basic rate of pay.” The basic pay component at Sibanye for PGM miners is currently around R14,500 a month, so R20,000 would represent an almost 40% increase on that. The demands appear to only be for one year. It is not clear at this stage what demands will be delivered to Sibanye’s other PGM operations. Meanwhile, other PGM producers such as Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) have already started wage talks.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Ed Stoddard at Daily Maverick
• See too, Amcu to demand 40% wage hike of PGM miners following year of high-flying metal prices, at Miningmx

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