[miningmx.com] – SIX weeks of violent strike action at Impala Platinum’s
(Implats’s) Impala Lease mine in Rustenburg, and no-one knows who to blame
anymore. The union generally credited with stirring up emotions among 5,000 rock
drill operators (RDOs), the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union
(Amcu) distanced itself from the events that claimed four lives at the mine. In fact,
Amcu’s president Joseph Muthunjwa denied the union had even been recruiting at
Impala.
For its part, Impala spoke of certain “criminal elements’ that had commandeered the
climate of anger and violence in order to destabilise the company. The finger has also
been pointed at the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) which, some say, has
allowed labour representation at Implats, and other mines, to deteriorate such that
Amcu has a constituency.
Certainly Implats has been destabilised. About 2,200 workers have permanently lost
jobs at the Rustenburg mine because its mine passages have been neglected and
have to be shut down. More job losses could follow if all 15,000 workers don’t return
where it’s expected they’ll be reinstated, not rehired, with their former benefits.
Meanwhile, the loss to revenue at Implats is a staggering R2.5bn, equal to 120,000
oz of production or some 7% of total annual platinum Implats sells to the market.
At the time of writing, slow progress in getting the Rustenburg mine to operate
properly again was being made. But when the dust settles on an uneasy time for
Implats, there will be questions about how it all got out of control so quickly. For all
its protestations of innocence, it’s certain that Amcu played at least an early part in
this dramatic conflagration at Implats. This raises the question as to what Amcu is
about.
Elize Strydom, Chief Wage Negotiator for the Chamber of Mines, says Amcu has been
around since the late Nineties. “They’ve been around a while, and seem to have a
deep-seated distrust of the NUM,’ she says. “They have an intense dislike of NUM,
which stems from being dissatisfied with how it failed to look after certain
interests.’
Amcu first established itself at BHP Billiton Energy SA’s (Becsa’s) Douglas colliery. It
is identified in a Labour Court judgement dated 29 January 2009, as having had
organisational rights at Douglas and the Middelburg Collieries at Becsa, and even of
joining the United Association of South Africa (UASA) to participate in the collective
bargaining process in wage negotiations during the mid-Nineties. Throughout, Amcu
seems to have the support of B-grade employees.
Since the Nineties, however, Amcu has been able to win membership from mining
labour in South Africa’s platinum industry. According to a labour industry source, this
has greatly to do with the departure from the NUM of its Deputy General-Secretary,
Archie Palane, who had a special constituency with employees at platinum mines.
“Since Palane’s departure [in 2006], the NUM has ignored platinum industry
employees,’ the source says. So it comes to pass that in addition to its obvious
support among some Implats ranks, Amcu also claimed support at Lonmin’s
operations. In fact, a strike in May last year at the Karee section of Lonmin’s
operations resulted in an illegal strike and mass dismissal of 9,000 employees;
similar in vein to the 17,000 who were fired at Impala, although without the violence.
At least two coal mining executives say they are intimately aware of Amcu presence
on their mines. “At Vaalkrantz we allow Amcu representation along with NUM,’ says
Paul Miller, MD of Keaton Energy. They are described as aggressive. Another
executive, who won’t be quoted, says Amcu has been able to win membership from
mining contractors and are thought to have close to 60,000 members. “It’s an
extremely volatile situation,’ he says.
Strydom believes that enabling Amcu to form alliances, as with UASA with which it
has a cooperation agreement, and win representation is something that needs to be
reconsidered. “It you’re going to get recognition agreements [at the mines] it has to
be in your own right,’ she says. Although, ignoring the voice of Amcu might not be
the answer either.
Ultimately, Strydom thinks that answer might lie with the NUM itself. “The union has
a lot of legwork to do to win back support from platinum industry labour,’ she says.
Back at the ranch, Implats CEO, David Brown, must be wondering just what happened
since early January, when he announced he planned to resign from the company in
June. He might have been expecting an orderly handover to in-coming CEO Terence
Goodlace; perhaps show him where the coffee machine is – that kind of thing.
Instead, in four short weeks, Implats has not only seen its flagship South African
mine crippled, but has received demands from the Zimbabwean government that it
relinquish its 50% stake in Mimosa Platinum Mines, and that its indigenisation
proposal in that country was invalid. Some handover period.
