[miningmx.com] – THE National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) will decline union-to-company wage negotiations insisting centralised bargaining is the only forum it will countenance – a position rival union, the Associated Mineworkers & Construction Union (Amcu), strongly opposes.
“We have no intention to bargain unless it is as a sector … we will not submit any wage demands unless the negotiations are centralised,” Frans Baleni told BDLive in an interview.
The situation for the NUM has become untenable in platinum mines, said BDLive. Baleni said his union had “no breathing space”, the online publication said.
The position of Amcu, however, could not be more different. It was not involved in the drafting of a proposal for centralised bargaining in the platinum sector – although it has been kept abreast of the developments, said BDLive.
“We maintain that there will be no benefit for workers through such a forum,” Amcu treasurer Jimmy Gama told BDLive.
The push for centralised bargaining was designed to keep the NUM around the negotiating table because it had bled members across the platinum belt. “The only way they can keep the NUM in is through centralised bargaining,” he said.
The developments are ominous for wage negotiations in the sector later in the year, especially as they come not even a year after 45 workers will shot dead at Lonmin’s Marikana mine, the nadir of violent wage and social protests across the Rustenburg region in South Africa’s North West province.
BDLive said that a meeting between the unions had been scheduled for Monday and that it would focus on establishing an interim structure for centralised bargaining. The meeting was expected to be strained.
