[miningmx.com] – JUST as one strike ends, a host of others, in different sectors, are picking up momentum.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) is due to take two-thirds of its 220,000 members out on strike next week potentially making it difficult for the platinum sector, which only this week ended a five-month strike, to ramp up production quickly.
“This could lead to a disruption of stuff that the platinum group metal companies need in their capital plans like power and equipment. That could affect the ramp-ups,” said Marc Elliott, an analyst for Investec Securities in London.
Johan Theron, head of corporate affairs at Impala Platinum, said that Eskom had assured it of its contingency plans in the event of an Eskom workers strike owing to the fact that 11,000 of the power utility’s employees are NUMSA members.
He added, however, that the bigger risk was the mere fact the platinum sector would be drawing on the national grid again – some 400MW in total. “The grid is going to be very tight again,” he said.
Strike action hangs in the air elsewhere.
On June 2, the National Union of Leather and Allied Workers announced 10,000 footwear workers, demanding a 7.75% pay rise, had begun a strike affecting 164 firms. It could spread throughout the textile and manufacturing sectors.
There’s also a strike affecting some of Africa’s largest sugar exporters while on June 1, the Food and Allied Workers Union announced plans to call for sympathy strikes in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors to support the sugar industry.
According to Robert Besseling, the South Africa analyst for IHS Country Risk, strike action is accelerating and becoming more radical, largely led by the activities of the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (AMCU), a union that pre-existed the Marikana Atrocity in August 2012, but which has attracted a large following in its wake.
“While a winter “strike season’ no longer follows the same patterns as it did in pre-2012, there is increased risk of work stoppages and associated protests over the next six months, particularly in the textile, manufacturing and agribusiness sectors, as well as retail and hospitality,’ Besseling wrote in a note to clients earlier this month.
And it could spread to other parts of the mining sector.
The AMCU was recently frustrated by the Labour Court which prevented it from calling a strike in the gold sector, but there’s a strong possibility AMCU could eventually return to the gold sector as the agreement with the National Union of Mineworkers ends.
“We don’t know what would happen, but that’s why were are pursuing a strategy of improved sustainability for all stakeholders,” said James Wellsted, head of corporate affairs for Sibanye Gold which has AMCU as a majority union at its Driefontein mine on the west Rand.
“Work stoppages are increasingly protracted, often longer than one month, and accompanies by violent intimidation,’ said Besseling.
