[miningmx.com] – Carletonville. YESTERDAY afternoon about 25,000 mineworkers gave Association of Mineworkers & Construction Workers (AMCU) president Joseph Mathunjwa a mandate to call a strike for higher wages at gold mines, but first to try to make further progress on the union’s wage demands with the Chamber of Mines.
The mandate was formulated during an orderly, but emotional, meeting in the Masizakhele Stadium at the Driefontein gold mines. It included speeches by various AMCU branch representatives at the various gold mines where Amcu represents large numbers of workers and was then supported by the entire crowd of 25,000 by a show of hands.
The meeting was attended by mineworkers from all the surrounding mines, including mines where AMCU is not yet recognised as the majority union, such as AngloGold Ashanti’s Tau Tona and Savuka and Harmony’s Free State mines, but it is clear that the union has great support at all the mines.
Harmony’s mines all came out on strike under the guidance of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) last week, but did not end the strike when NUM accepted the Chamber’s 8% wage offer on Friday.
Tau Tona, Savuka and Mponeng did not strike – Mponeng because AMCU already represents the majority of workers there, but at Tau Tona and Savuka the balance appears to have swung in favour of Amcu only in the past few weeks.
It therefore seems very likely that all the mines, including Harmony’s Free State operations, will come to a standstill again if Amcu calls a strike.
According to AMCU spokesmen, Target is the only Harmony mine where the union does not yet not represent the majority of workers.
Mathunjwa said during an emotional speech that the Chamber of Mines and NUM want to impose the wage increases of 8% that they agreed on last week on all mineworkers. This provoked an angry response from the crowd.
The 8% is R340 per month for someone earning R4,000 per month, Mathunjwa said. “With that you can buy a loaf of bread every day for two weeks,’ he said.
