Business Times reports that striking unions and Sibanye-Stillwater signed a gold wage deal at the weekend after days of tense talks during which several sticking points threatened to derail the agreement thrashed out at the CCMA.

An in-principle deal was announced more than a week ago, but it was only in the early hours of Saturday morning, after it seemed that talks had failed and would have to be resumed this week, that the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) and the company confirmed the deal was done. Joseph Mathunjwa, Amcu president, said the agreement was signed just after 12:45am on Saturday morning. NUM spokesperson Livhuwani Mammburu said the union had decided to compromise and sign off on the final contested clause. Sibanye confirmed the deal had been signed. The company and the unions held meetings throughout last week, which were facilitated by the CCMA. Sibanye spokesperson James Wellsted said three or four clauses had been bones of contention to the end. Among them was clause 23, whereby Sibanye wanted to make changes to the conditions of employment, including changes to overtime, rest periods and meal breaks. Mammburu said these issues were finally agreed and settled. Another point of contention was the R3,000 ex gratia hardship payment. Mammburu said Sibanye initially refused to offer it to so-called ‘artisans, miners and officials’, and would only pay it to certain other categories of employees. But late on Friday, he said, the company had agreed to extend the R3,000 payment to all employees who were on strike.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Dineo Faku at Business Times (subscriber access only)
• Read too, Unions sign wage deal after Sibanye-Stillwater relents on ex-gratia payment, at Miningmx

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