[miningmx.com] – IT’S easy to see why Joseph Mathunjwa and the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (AMCU) of which he is president, has been a big hit on South Africa’s mines over the last two years.
Mathunjwa is quietly spoken (journalists hitched their chairs forward as today’s press conference began), but he moved from serenity to wrath with pace, and easily developed the technical points of dispute with Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) into a broader ideological exegesis.
“Why are we being enslaved by our own minerals?’, he asked at a press conference intended to up the ante with Amplats where an AMCU-led strike, a protest against planned retrenchments at the company, is now in full flow. “For how long should we be enslaved?’, he asked.
“The minerals of the country were meant to serve the nation, not the interests of investors,’ he added. “Why doesn’t government take the [mining] licences and give them to another company that would run them [the mines]?
“Why should the company close down a mine because of the [platinum] price. It’s high time the government should take a drastic step with these investors in order to save jobs. If the government is the custodian, they should take steps against these investors,’ said Mathunjwa.
Questions over, he then blessed us. Comrades burst into song. Press releases were handed out.
Quite what the occupants sitting downstairs at the suburban boutique hotel, The Quartermain, thought of the commotion in the upper room is anyone’s guess. Investors will think even less.
The dispute with Amplats is threatening to morph into a wider platinum industry crisis as it consumes time and energy that should be directed towards resolving wage negotiations with Amplats, Impala Platinum and Lonmin. These, now, appear to have stalled.
Surely, Amplats can’t change its restructuring plans as it has already issued notices of its restructuring to unions? Or maybe it can?
It seemed improbable, and even unwise, to tear up last year’s restructuring in which up to 14,000 jobs would be “affected’, but that’s exactly what Amplats did. (Incidentally, it also seemed unwise not to have included unions in the consultation process that resulted in the restructuring AMCU is disputing).
Meanwhile, there’s an interesting test of contrary strategies underway between AMCU and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) which is attempting to stop Amplats’ restructuring by interdicting its actions in the Labour Court.
If the Labour Court agrees with the NUM, it will be a major victory for the union which has suffered an apostasy of members at the hands of Mathunjwa.
If successful in the Labour Court, the NUM will be able to claim that its strategy in influencing Amplats’ restructuring plans involved no loss of pay whereas AMCU members could see a repeat of the debt difficulties experienced a year ago when they downed tools in the wake of the Marikana atrocity.
By way of important back story, sales of Absa Capital’s NewGold Platinum Debenture continue at pace reflecting the growing view that supply from South Africa’s platinum sector is in for another bumpy ride, and that that may reflect in the platinum price.
Mathunjwa may or may not be aware that investors follow the money more religiously than he does; that when all’s said and done, they are faithless; and they certainly don’t give a hoot for the national interest, at least not the international investors that hold shares in Amplats.
So when push comes to shove, shareholders will simply quit the nest; knowing that will probably steel Amplats. On second thoughts, it can’t change its restructuring again; it simply can’t.
A prolonged strike is going to hurt Mathunjwa’s union’s membership and unfortunately up the stakes in the wage negotiations. It all adds up a bit of a Waterloo for Mathunjwa; a make or break situation where failure to get Amplats to relent on its restructuring will raise the hackles among his own membership. Money talks. It always does.
