[miningmx.com] – LAST ditch efforts were underway to avoid a strike in the South African coal sector with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) saying it was prepared to down tools on Sunday evening (October 4).
Citing the chief negotiator at NUM, IHS McCloskey said that the union and the Chamber of Mines would continue to find a solution. The NUM was earlier this week awarded a certificate of non-resolution which legally hands the union 48 hours to call a strike.
The chamber represents Anglo Coal, a unit of Anglo American, Exxaro Coal Mpumalanga, Glencore’s South African assets including Koornfontien and Optimum Coal Mine, and a number of smaller coal miners such as Kangra Coal and Kuyasa Mining’s Delmas Coal.
The coal mines of South32, formerly BHP Billiton Energy Coal South Africa, conducted their own company-level negotiations last year and are not involved in the current negotiations.
“On the coal side we’ve given notification of the intent to strike,” the negotiator told IHS McCloskey today. “We’ve agreed that we will embark on a strike on Sunday evening at 6pm, but the parties are still engaging to see if they can’t find a solution”. “The notification is out to the employers and if we don’t reach an agreement by Sunday evening, the strike will continue,’ he said.
The strike would impact all coal mines with workers represented by the NUM, he added. The NUM is the majority union in coal and the membership in the coal sector is around 30,000, said IHS McCloskey.
“It would be counterproductive to say that the strike would last for a certain period because then it means you are not committed to a solution,’ the NUM said.
“A strike for us in South Africa is a last resort, so the strike’s duration is dependent on the employers’ willingness to address the issues at hand. The union is always prepared to make certain sacrifices for the advancement of a solution.’
The NUM wage demand for lowest paid workers represented an increase of 13% after initially asking for a 50% lift. Coal producers, meanwhile, had raised their offer up to 8.5% for lowest paid workers from 8% previously.
A strike in the coal sector would be potentially damaging to Eskom which has an average coal inventory of about 42 days. However, certain power stations have smaller stockyards meaning coal could be depleted well before that time.
Eskom has gone more than a month without implementing significant national load-shedding, but a strike might set the power utility back, as well as disturbing its maintenance programme.
A long interruption in coal production would also affect another government-owned utility, Transnet, which is already likely to fall short of its 76 million tonnes target in exports for its current financial year.
