[miningmx.com] – HOPES were growing that South Africa’s platinum firms and the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (AMCU) may find a resolution to the 18-week strike the human cost of which is still to be fully comprehended.
A three-day process of mediation convened by the Labour Court on May 21 has been extended suggesting that wage talks have momentum. There’s also an absence of the rhetoric to which the wage talk process has been vulnerable to over the weeks.
Analysts in London told Miningmx there were hopes for a conclusion to the wage talks, an optimism heightened by the absence of Ben Magara, Lonmin CEO, from a company roadshow in the City who has opted to stay in South Africa.
The intervention of the newly appointed mines minister, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, also looks like a piece of handy politicking, timed to coincide with a resolution.
The Department of Mineral Resources confirmed an earlier Reuters story saying the minister had “… embarked on a series of consultative engagements with key stakeholders in the sector”.
Stakeholders should “… focus on working together so that we move South Africa forward, and ensure we achieve our objectives as set out in the National Development Plan,’ Ngoako said.
Goldman Sachs said any agreement would have to take into account the impact of lost wages to date.
“A worker on c.R10k / month is now c.R40-50k out of pocket since the strike commenced and it will take more than two years to earn back lost wages so the terms of a settlement have to take this into account,” it said.
Quite how a deal will accommodate AMCU’s demand for R12,500 per month in basic pay for all miners is anyone’s guess given that the structure of the impasse – the unaffordability of the demand claimed by platinum producers and the high stakes placed on a positive outcome for AMCU – remains in place.
