[miningmx.com] – AN uncomfortable reality of the rock drill operators’
(RDOs) strike at Lonmin’s Marikana mine is that, on aggregate, RDOs in the
platinum sector are better paid than in the gold sector.
A senior industry figure, who helps negotiate wage increases with miners but who
has asked to remain anonymous, says the major difference of violence in one part of
the mining sector and relative peace in the other is central bargaining. The gold
industry, under the auspices of the Chamber of Mines of SA’s (CoM’s) central
bargaining unit, has largely removed the heavily incentivised nature of RDO
payment. This has raised the basic minimum wage and lowered tensions.
According to Johan Theron, labour relations manager at Impala Platinum (Implats)
the onset of centralised bargaining for the platinum sector is just a matter of time. It
will stop unions “attacking’ mines directly and playing one company off against
another. Controversially he also doesn’t think it’s salaries that form the fundamental
discontent that tragically became manifest at Marikana. “It’s a red herring,’ he says.
Rather, the issue is a complex web of forces; a combination that another source
described to Miningmx as “a toxic mix of different things’. Inter-union
rivalry – involving the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Associated
Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) – is clearly a factor, as are the political
undertones of undermining Cosatu’s NUM by Amcu, an unaffiliated union.
To a large extent, NUM has contributed towards the growing popularity of Amcu.
Albert de Beer, a veteran labour relations expert who recently consulted to Implats
following its six-week strike, owing to his knowledge of Amcu, says NUM is now a
political organisation, not a labour movement. It sits on its laurels, he says.
For instance, its agency shop agreements are a point in case. Unlike the old-
fashioned closed-shop union agreements in which workers were compelled to join
the dominant union, the agency shop regime requires workers to give up a portion
of their fees regardless of membership. It means NUM gets a commercial benefit
from being the majority union and, says De Beer, that has led to complacency.
He also doesn’t think central bargaining can help the issue much. The rise of Amcu
and the violence is a problem he places firmly at the door of management, which he
says has been devoid of strategic planning. Why, he argues, has UASA got
representational rights at Lonmin’s mines but Amcu doesn’t, an organisation that
claimed recently 20,000 of its ranks were drawn from the platinum sector?
“There are too many structural issues that need to be ironed out before going to
central bargaining. There is a void in the platinum industry; it is not proactive,’ he
says.
Take the provenance of Implats’ strike earlier this year. About 18 months ago,
Implats recognised its RDOs were being paid below the industry average but was
persuaded by NUM representatives (who are miners, not RDOs) to agree to wage
increases across all levels in return for a two-year wage deal – the first time Implats
had achieved such a long-term deal.
That was the first mistake. By November, Implats was still leaking large numbers of
miners and therefore agreed to a salary increase for miners outside of the wage deal
signed six months earlier. That was mistake number two. By January, the RDOs had
heard of the secret deal with the miners and all hell broke loose.
Meanwhile, at Lonmin’s Karee mine, something else was happening.
Following an internal dispute, NUM’s head office dismissed its regional
representatives at the mine, who nonetheless called an unprotected strike. The
former NUM regional representatives were duly dismissed but not rehired. Without a
union or a constituency, they were recruited by Amcu, who knew in their freshly
hired former NUM colleagues, individuals with an axe to grind.
Another overlay in this “toxic mix’ is the role played by contractors. The sources
Miningmx interviewed agreed unanimously that labour supplied by
contractors was becoming increasingly less preferred by platinum producers. Some
contractors, such as Murray & Roberts Cementation or Grinaker usually provide
services where contractors have signed terms and conditions that align with full-time
employees. These are contractors who also happen to be members of the CoM.
Other contractors, perhaps those not aligned with the CoM, can pay lower salaries
than the full-time employees, a condition that naturally informs on-mine discontent.
One of the largest mining contracting firms is JIC Mining Services, the company
owned by the Gupta brothers and which has Jacob Zuma’s son, Duduzane Zuma, as
a director and investor.
Jacques Roux, CEO of JIC, has promised to speak to Miningmx about his
company’s policy in respect of the platinum industry which it widely services through
on-site offices at Amandelbult, Brakspruit, Swartklip near Anglo American Platinum’s
mines, and others at Bafokeng Rasimone Platinum Mine (BRPM) and Eastern
Platinum’s Crocodile River. Steve Phiri, CEO of Royal Bafokeng Platinum (RBPlat),
confirms his company draws numbers of employees on a part-time basis, and is now
in a process of downscaling contractors as costs bite.
“If you want cheap labour then you are heading for disaster,’ says De Beer of short-
term, contracted labour. “You are heading for a war.’ Generally speaking,
contractors are best used supplying scarce skills or for short-term project work,
which is preferred to the lengthy and messy process of hiring and then retrenching
on project completion.
Theron paints an emotive picture of how contracted labour adds to the difficult
climate of relations on mines. “There is turnover in the platinum industry of about
10% annually, so 10,000 jobs are up for grabs every year.
“Contracting companies often scrape the bottom of the barrel in recruiting miners.
These are unemployed people who move to the informal settlements near the mines
in order to be close to the local authorities, whom they hope will push them to the
front of the queue when the jobs come up. But they are desperate people, desperate
for work.’ Socially, these are not ideal conditions from which to be drawing labour,
but they are typical conditions for some contractors operating the platinum mining
sector.
Full-time RDOs are paid between R10,000 and R10,500 per month by Implats.
Including deductions of about R2,000 for tax and pension contributions, and adding
productivity bonuses, if they are achieved, RDOs can take home between R7,000 to
R8,000 per month. It’s questionable whether this is an ethical minimum wage, but
it’s more than the R4,000/month amount RDOs are thought to earn.
De Beer reckons the platinum sector should look to the example of BHP Billiton, the
company where, incidentally, Amcu has its roots but where it no longer has any
presence.
“BHP was one of the first companies to introduce an ethical wage from about
2004/2005. That didn’t happen in the chamber process, which raises my doubts as
to whether central bargaining for platinum miners will change anything,’ he says.
“This was a well-structured, in-house agreement.
“Central bargaining structures are just the vehicle. What matters is that
management has to take on the issue,’ he says.
