[miningmx.com] – ANGLO American Platinum (Amplats), the South African government’s mineral resources department (DMR), and unions are to resume Section 189 restructuring talks relating to the platinum firm’s Rustenburg shafts on Friday (May 24).
Amplats said the process, which will fall under the auspices of the Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), may save yet more jobs than first envisaged in its revised restructuring announced on May 10.
“We have agreed on proposals that we intend to thrash out further at the CCMA. It may have the result of saving more jobs,” said Mpumi Sithole, a spokesperson for the Anglo American subsidiary.
In its revised restructuring, Amplats said it would cut the number of planned retrenchments to 6,000 from 14,000, while base line annual platinum production would be between 2.2 million ounces to 2.4 million oz compared to the earlier proposed reduction that would take group output to between 2.1 million oz to 2.3 million oz a year.
However, the revised restructuring programme had excluded unions including the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Associated Mineworkers & Construction Union (Amcu), owing the exchange of sensitive information between the government and Amplats.
Now, however, the unions had been brought back into the process, Amplats said.
“The parties spent the past week engaging on interventions to reduce the impact of restructuring on mineworkers,” said Amplats in a statement.
“This process has now reached a stage whereby parties have agreed on measures and mitigation plans that will preserve jobs,” it said.
The NUM was unimpressed, however. “They are moving the goalposts,” said Lesiba Seshoka. “Why not say this is the amount they are going to retrench. It doesn’t matter because we are opposed to any retrenchments,” he added.
The DMR and Amcu could not be reached for comment at the time of writing. Discussion at the CCMA would also include Numsa and UASA.
