Production disruption at Village’s Cons Murch

[miningmx.com] — VILLAGE Main Reef said on Thursday it has started a process to dismiss employees, who are members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), that have been participating in unprotected strike action in the form of a go-slow campaign at its Cons Murch mine in Limpopo.

The miner said the go-slow action over the last two weeks had negatively impacted production from the underground operations at Cons Murch, with daily production achieved at around a third of normal production levels.

The dispute arose in relation to certain historic overtime payments claimed by the employees resulting from their employment at Cons Murch, prior to Village’s ownership and involvement, the group said.

In an attempt to normalise the labour situation and to avoid drastic action, a further and final ultimatum was issued to employees to normalise production levels by Wednesday September 21.

“It is anticipated that there will be no production from Cons Murch for at least a two week period and that antimony and gold production for the December 2011 quarter could be some 500 tonnes and 25kg respectively, lower than that forecast for the September quarter,” Village said.

“The lower production will not significantly impact on the forecast production for the September quarter. Although the lower production will have a materially negative impact on the Cons Murch results for the December quarter, it will not materially impact the results of Village for the December quarter,” it added.