[miningmx.com] – IT’S critical the Associated Mineworkers & Construction Union (AMCU) signs the government’s Framework Agreement for a Sustainable Mining Industry when it reconvenes with other unions, government and business on June 26.
AMCU has been the proverbial wolf at the door of the mining industry for nearly 18 months, building a cohort of flag-waving, arms-bearing followers – predominantly the lower paid workers – with promises of sweeping change.
It now has to step over the threshold so it can become part of the bargaining system, or it will not serve its thousands of members properly, and ultimately fail.
Rival unions want it to fail, but it were better it did not. There is an element of choice of unions in the labour market but there isn’t true democracy. An AMCU with organisational substance, controls and checks, sounds like healthy evolution.
The framework agreement is the best opportunity for that; possibly, the last real opportunity since it really is government’s trump card. It’s hard to see how government could present a better opening for AMCU given the heft of personality it sent into the summit preamble that led to the framework on June 14, including the deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe and an array of ministers.
If AMCU doesn’t sign it, then we can look forward to a very grim winter of wage negotiations. There will be conflict because AMCU will feel it has been estranged while government will feel justified in using force in violent mine protests.
Even if AMCU does sign the agreement, there’s no guarantee of peace and stability on the mines; at least based on the evidence of an eye-opening mining industry roundtable earlier this week convened by Talk Radio 702.
The radio station invited Exxaro Resources CEO, Sipho Nkosi and Peter Leon, head of mining at Webber Wentzel who, somewhat wisely, separated on either flank AMCU’s treasurer, Jimmy Gama, and Frans Baleni, general-secretary for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
What was remarkable about the meeting was how it ended. A somewhat restrained, even anodyne, discussion about mining turned fractious in a matter of moments. Emotions ran high: nought to 100 in mere seconds.
If that can happen among the tea and cakes of a Sandton auditorium, then one has to doubt the power of a piece of paper to stem a similar escalation among thousands of aggrieved mineworkers at the mine gate.
It started with Baleni declaring his organisation had no problem with AMCU as the majority union, but qualified that by suggesting some fradulent activities had been uncovered before he bizarrely pointed the finger at third forces in the labour movement.
Gama responded that AMCU believed in peace. “We are not responsible for any killing. There must be law and order,” he said. Worthy sentiments, yes, but some considered them weasel words, especially auditorium members who wore union tee-shirts and had earlier spontaneously broke into song. They heckled Gama.
There was plenty of finger jabbing at business as well including a confusing debate about combining wage increases with pledges to improve productivity. All agreed productivity should happen, but it was industry’s fault it hadn’t.
And why couldn’t the mining industry pay salaries on a par with Australia where productivity was very high?
So on and so forth the debate surged and ebbed. Could industry pay higher salaries? Yes, they could, said Nkosi. And then back to the productivity debate.
There was, in truth, lively debate but very little agreement; alot of talking, but very little listening.
