| Mon 28 Jul 2003, 8:34 | | NUM calls off gold strike |
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NUM calls off gold strike
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The National Union of Mineworkers has called off its strike in the gold mining industry at the eleventh hour, the union's general-secretary Gwede Mantashe said in Johannesburg on Sunday afternoon.
But he could not guarantee isolated pockets of workers at some mines would not go on strike because of the amount of time it would take to inform all members of the cancellation.
Mantashe and union president Crosby Moni said the majority of the union's 100,000 members had voted to accept a revised offer made by the Chamber of Mines, representing Anglogold, Harmony and Goldfields, on Saturday.
"We would love to strike if there is a good reason. There is no good reason (to do so)," Mantashe told a packed press conference at the NUM's city centre head office, a few blocks from the chamber's own offices.
In a statement handed to journalists at the briefing, NUM said all its members bar those employed at South Deep and Kuyasa mines, would receive a minimum of a 10 percent across-the-board wage increase.
Furthermore, the chamber committed its members to set the minimum wage for surface workers at R2,000 by January 1 next year.
Underground workers are already paid a minimum of R2,000.
The parties also agreed to determine next year's increase using an "inflation plus one" formula and a floor of seven percent.
With regards to job grading, the chamber undertook to re-grade operators.
A deadline was set for December. Implementation would be backdated to July 1 and remuneration paid accordingly.
"Therefore on the basis of these the entire wage negotiation process has reached settlement. Contrary to earlier pessimistic views that what the union was demanding is impossible to reach has been proven false," the union said.
"It is clear that if and when the industry has a positive outlook on issues brought by the union we can achieve a reasonable and amicable solution without necessarily having to go to a strike action. The settlement of these negotiations is a result of a strong and united well disciplined and organised workers. We therefore salute our members for wanting to see change happening."
Mantashe added that Durban Roodepoort Deep was the sole gold mining group with which it had not yet reached a settlement.
The two parties, who had not yet deadlocked, were set to face each other at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration on Monday.
However, he warned that a number of "public utterances" by DRD's management had set the stage for a showdown and strike action could not be ruled out.
He was referring to threats by DRD to close two marginal North West province mines at the potential cost of 13,000 jobs.
Furthermore, the group was offering increases of between two and four percent only, which Mantashe and Moni could only laugh at.
News reports on Sunday morning speculated the strike, billed as the biggest in 16 years in the gold industry, would not go ahead because of the compromise.
The reports indicated that had the strike gone ahead, the industry would have lost production worth R125-million daily and workers would have lost pay worth R50-million a day.
Chamber chief negotiator Frans Barker welcomed the news, saying he was "quite relieved that a reasonable compromise could be found at the end of the day".
Sapa
