Wage deal in sight as union urges members to accept Sibanye-Stillwater revised offer

SOLIDARITY, a trade union, recommended its members employed at Sibanye-Stillwater’s gold division accept an improved offer allegedly tabled by the Johannesburg company.

It was previously reported that Sibanye-Stillwater had revised its wage offer to four mining unions, including Solidarity after proposing annual increases of nearly R1,000 in an effort to head off industrial action.

“Solidarity cannot speak on behalf of other trade unions but will encourage its members to consider the new offer favourably,” said Solidarity General Secretary Gideon du Plessis. Sibanye-Stillwater revised its offer of increases of R570 to R670 for lowest-paid employees to R800 for each of the three years, said reports.

According to the new proposal, miners, artisans and officials would receive salary increases of 5% for each of the three years.

“It would appear as if an agreement may now be within reach with Sibanye-Stillwater after a marathon negotiation session last Friday,” said Du Plessis.

Sibanye-Stillwater said it had “… revised our offer a number of times since these negotiations began. As we have said we remain committed to a wage agreement that is fair, but also considers the sustainability of our operations”.

Wage negotiations between unions that also included the National Union of Mineworkers and the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union have been underway for about seven months. The unions, which had grouped together, had recently been granted a strike certificate by the Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.

Du Plessis said that even with the gold negotiations looking like they may be concluded, more hard bargaining was on the table as attention turned to new wage deals in South Africa’s platinum group metal sector.

“Negotiations at Sibanye’s platinum mines will start as soon as an agreement has been reached with Sibanye as far as its gold mines are concerned,” he said.

“These negotiations promise to be much more robust because during its gold mine negotiations the company consistently pleaded poverty and threatened with retrenchments while ascribing its favourable financial position to its profitable platinum mines.”

In October, Sibanye-Stillwater reported a decline in the average basket price of its PGMs to R42,347/4E per ounce in the September quarter from R54,148/4E oz in the June quarter. This was partly behind lower group earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of R14.9bn. In the June quarter, Sibanye-Stillwater reported record group EBITDA of R20.7bn.