CoM, unions play ‘chess with knives’

[miningmx.com] – THE wage negotiations between the mining unions and the gold mines in the Chamber of Mines this year are a trickier chess game than ever before.

The process was first conducted in its present form in 1983, and over the years certain customs and traditions have developed. The role players naturally include leading figures in the mining industry.

They, and the organisations they represent, have got to know each other intimately at a certain level over the past thirty years; have acquired skills; raised successors in the tradition; and have developed strategies that are sometimes actually tricks for the street-wise.

In short, it’s a club for old hands if there ever was one – probably one of the most established clubs of its kind in the country.

This year there is an unwelcome newcomer to the club – the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU). And, as things go in such clubs, the old hands will do nothing to make AMCU feel welcome.

In fact, if you look closely at what has happened during the past year or two, and note where interests have built up in the past decade, there is good reason to think that the old hands are silently holding a dagger or two behind their backs for the moment that AMCU turns to look away.

AMCU represents only 17% of the workers in gold mines, but its members are concentrated in three of the largest and richest gold mines in the country – Sibanye Gold’s Driefontein, Harmony’s Kusasalethu and AngloGold Ashanti’s Mponeng. Its support is mainly in the western Witwatersrand – the area around Carletonville and Randfontein.

The only other rich mine in the area, South Deep, belongs to Gold Fields and is excluded from the Chamber of Mines negotiations.

The three mines are the crown jewels of the country’s three largest gold producers. It’s obvious that AMCU can negotiate better increases there than NUM can expect at the other mines.

For NUM this would probably mean losing its status as the majority union in the gold mines, just as it has been virtually wiped out in the platinum industry.

NUM recently informed Cosatu that its membership has fallen from 340,000 to 270,000 – causing it to drop from the largest union in Cosatu to fourth place. AMCU grew by more than 100,000 members in the past year, which makes you wonder whether NUM’s 270,000 is not overoptimistic. But, well .

The Chamber was established more than a century ago precisely so that it would not necessary for mining bosses to negotiate against each other on the matter of wages. And no owner of a gold mine, regardless how rich, will pay mineworkers more than is absolutely necessary – especially not after the sharp fall in the gold price earlier this year. In fact, wage increases could mean the end for one or two gold mines.

That’s why the Chamber took the unprecedented step on behalf of the gold producers the day before yesterday and for the first time in its history declared a dispute against a union – AMCU.

This will force AMCU to become part of a dispute process along with NUM, Solidarity and UASA under the experienced negotiator, Avzul Soobedaar of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.

What the Chamber is actually trying to do is to protect its own system of central bargaining. The problem with this is that the Chamber itself has allowed exceptions in the past ten years or longer by negotiating smaller wage increases for DRD, one of its marginal gold producers.

There is nothing to stop AMCU from sitting quietly through the dispute process, and then as soon as NUM and other unions reach an agreement, to declare that is not bound by it.

When the Chamber reaches an agreement of wage increases of, say, 6.5% with the other unions, AMCU can decide to start negotiating about that percentage and even call a strike for higher increases.

There are provisions in the Labour Relations Act that state that a collective agreement with a majority union is binding on the minority unions in a workplace.

It could be argued that an agreement with NUM is binding on AMCU and that a strike for higher wages by AMCU would be an unprotected strike.

The counter-argument would be that AMCU is the majority trade union at the three larger mines and an agreement that applies to the other mines does not apply to it.

This is especially convincing when one considers that there is no bargaining council for the mining industry. An agreement can therefore not really be enforced on parties in other workplaces where it was not agreed upon.

However, Harmony Gold, AngloGold Ashanti and Sibanye Gold are also eager to push a few knives into AMCU. They will most probably dismiss the workers at the three mines if they go on strike without the blessing of NUM, and appoint the workers again if they accept the settlement reached with NUM.

This would be a severe blow for AMCU’s standing in the gold mines. It would also raise the climate of violence in the mining industry by a few levels.

But there is another sting in the tail: If AMCU wins at the end of the negotiations, with or without a strike, the negotiating table in two years’ time will look completely different – or maybe even disappear.

The few good qualities of central bargaining are being seriously discussed in other sectors these days, even in labour courts.

In two years’ time, employers in a declining industry like gold mining could think completely differently about this. A strike and a wage settlement at richer gold mines this year could really cause the debate in the mining industry to flare up.