[miningmx.com] – AN improved wage offer by South Africa’s platinum companies had not been taken to members of the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (AMCU), but the country’s mines minister, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, said that a deal was close.
BDLive, citing AMCU president, Joseph Mathunjwa, said: “”There was no agreement that we would take the offer to our members. Today, we have responded to the minister and we await his response to us in turn.”
However, Bloomberg News, reporting on an interview with Ramatlhodi by the SABC, cited the minister as saying: “We are definitely close, very close’ to a solution. We’ll get feedback this afternoon and if it requires more work, we’ll get the job done. We have no time to waste, we can’t afford another day longer.’
Miningmx, republishing an article by Beeld, said on June 2 that negotiators had tabled a 16% increase to the basic wage at Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), which pays the lowest basic wage, to R9,000 per month in 2017, and at Lonmin, which pays the highest wages, to R9,713 in 2017.
This still does not meet AMCU’s demand to reach a basic salary of R12,500 per month in the present negotiation cycle, and all sorts of ways were looked at last week to find money to increase the wage offer, which bogged down at increases 9% and 9.5%, the article said.
