[miningmx.com] – IN a development that ominously evokes a standoff a year ago, Northam Platinum has urged members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to return to work at the firm’s Zondereinde mine by January 15.
This follows the granting of an urgent interdict by the Labour Court in favour of Northam in respect of unprotected industrial action by NUM members from the night shift of January 13.
On January 17, 2014 Northam and the NUM brought a 75 day strike at Zondereinde to a close after agreeing to a two-year wage increase of between 8.5% and 9.5%. The protracted nature of the strike was a bitter hors d’oeuvre to the five-and-a-half month strike involving the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (AMCU).
Similarly, the sudden nature of the strike this week suggests that despite a hiatus in major industrial action since June, the nature of labour relations in the mining sector is tense and unpredictable.
Northam Platinum said today it had received a communique from the NUM which set out its concerns relating to recruitment, disciplinary and leave processes and agreements. A failure to return to work, though, could result in disciplinary action or dismissal, it said.
“In terms of the recognition agreement with the NUM and the provisions of the Labour Relations Act, Northam has established processes and channels in place to deal with issues of this nature without resorting to industrial action,” it said in a statement. The
smelter operations remain unaffected.
The strike last year at Zondereinde resulted in the loss of R750m in revenue and wiped out some of the finance that had been raised a few months earlier in order to bolster the firm’s balance sheet.
Northam Platinum CEO, Paul Dunne, announced last year that he intended to grow the company through organic expansion and possible merger and acquisition activity. This followed the issue of about 22% of its share capital in a black economic empowerment deal that raised R4.6bn in the process.
