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Business Times reports that up to 35,000 coal mining jobs could be on the line due to export constraints on the coal corridor as a result of Transnet weaknesses.
According to coal miner Seriti Power, production at its export mines has been hampered by the inability to transport more coal by rail and it has issued a section 189 retrenchment notice at its Klipspruit colliery in Mpumalanga, affecting 605 workers. In the notice issued on 11 September, Seriti’s Ndumi Khoza proposed restructuring the Klipspruit colliery, saying it was struggling with increased production costs and the depressed coal price environment. Brendon Hubbard of ClucasGray Investment Management commented that mining companies could not keep mining volumes at the same level if they could not sell their coal. “They have to start curtailing production and planning early mine closures, and that leads to retrenchments,” he noted. According to Hubbard, the coal industry was facing a double whammy of rail constraints and load-shedding. “Of the 93,000 people who work in the coal sector, somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000 could be retrenched. These are big numbers.” He said allowing the private sector to take over the running of key export rail lines was the only solution to the crisis. National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) highveld region deputy secretary Thapelo Malekutu said workers were bearing the brunt of a failing logistics system. The union is pushing for the opening of the freight rail network to the private sector. Malekutu said NUM was engaged in wage negotiations with several coal miners and all of them were rejecting increased wage demands because they were sitting with stocks they could not rail.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Dineo Faku at Business Times
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