JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – There were currently no scheduled talks between the Association of Minewokers and Construction Union (AMCU) and platinum producers Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), Impala Platinum (Implats) and Lonmin, after the union’s members “resoundingly rejected” the latest offer from the employers, AMCU president Joseph Mathunjwa said on Monday.

Addressing the media in Johannesburg, he stated the strike, which was currently in its fifteenth week, continued with AMCU sticking to its demand of reaching a R12 500 basic salary over a four-year period.

Matjunjwa said the union was still waiting for a date from the producers to officially present them with its rejection of the latest offer that comprised increases to achieve a cash remuneration package of R12 500 by 2017.

He also reiterated that AMCU believed that the companies could meet its demands, referring to, among others, the high salaries of platinum CEOs and “reckless spending on overtime that predominantly benefitted managerial employees”, stating that the platinum producers’ refusal to pay employees more was fuelled by greed, stubbornness and arrogance. 

Mathunjwa said for the union and companies to have serious settlement engagements it was important for employers to provide total wage costs for each company.

He said Amplats had given the union a benchmark, stating that its budget for wage increases was R1-billion a year; however, this was not done in good faith.

“In interrogating the Amplats calculation of different wage increase alternatives, we realised that the staff compliment had been inflated by 4747 workers for the A, B and C categories. This had accounted for up to R500-million in exaggerated wage increase[s],” Mathunjwa said.

He stated that, while the Amplats negotiators had conceded that the number of employees were inflated, the company refused to acknowledge that this was affecting the calculation of wage increases.

“This engagement exposed that the employers, in particular Amplats, can afford the AMCU demands. The R12 500 in four years will amount to a total cost to company increase of R1.3-billion in the first year for Amplats,” Mathunjwa said.

“However, these companies have resolved to hold the country at ransom [by not meeting AMCU’s demands],” he added.

Meanwhile, the platinum producers last week took its offer directly to the employees, bypassing the union in an attempt to end the strike, with Implats having stated that two-thirds of its workers had indicated that they would be willing to go back to work for the current offer.

Mathunjwa described the direct communications strategy employed by the platinum producers as an “underhand[ed] tactic that have been a catastrophic failure and exposed the desperate attempts by the [platinum] cabal to divide the workers”.

“The [platinum companies] will do their best to break the strike, demoralise the workers and make the union seem [in]active, but the workers have seen that they have to liberate themselves,” he said.

Mathunjwa reiterated that the AMCU members had “overwhelmingly rejected” the companies’ offer, stating that he also did not believe that the union’s members were intimidated at mass meetings, where votes were taken on the union’s mandate to not voice their concerns.

Mathunjwa also said the union’s “militancy”, which led some to believe that intimidation was taking place, was a description given to AMCU by the media and was not true.

“AMCU is not militant, simply focused,” he said.

STRIKE FUND
Meanwhile, AMCU last month announced that it had opened a “strike fund” for its striking members in the platinum belt.

Mathunjwa said the union had donated R1-million to the fund, while AMCU office bearers, officials and staff had put forward a further R50 000.

However, economist Mike Schüssler last week pointed out that the R1-million was inadequate as it translated into less than R5 a month for each of the 70 000 striking workers.

On Monday, Mathunjwa was evasive about what the money was being used for, simply repeating that the money went towards the “needs that arise during the strike”.

But, he mentioned that some of the funds had been dispersed to pay for funerals over the weekend.

'REGRETTABLE'

Responding to AMCU’s comments later on Monday, the platinum majors said in a joint statement that they had “regrettably” been informed of the union’s decision to continue with the strike.

“The companies were advised of this decision by AMCU leadership at a meeting this afternoon. AMCU’s decision is disappointing, as the companies’ efforts to develop a new offer that is affordable and sustainable was designed to come as close as possible to meeting the union’s demand.

“The companies note that AMCU has also made no effort to suggest a solution to [the] strike which, as is well documented, is causing deep and adverse impacts on employees, their communities and the local Rustenburg economy as a whole,” the trio noted.

The miners said they would continue their direct approaches to employees, with Lonmin asking employees to indicate their intention to accept the settlement offer by SMS by May 8.

“A provisional return to work date of May 14 has been planned and [will] be dependent on the responses received,” the firm stated.

Implats, meanwhile, continued to communicate with employees to gauge their response to the offer and would advise progress “in due course”, while Amplats had made the offer available to its employees and said it had already “seen a start in the uptake thereof”.

While none of the companies had set final acceptance dates or presented ultimatums to employees, they indicated that they had received feedback from a large number of employees who wanted to accept the offer and return to work but were fearful of doing so owing to the threats to their personal safety.

“The respective company security teams have documented dozens of incidents of threats of personal harm by faceless individuals, or by strike leaders [of] AMCU meeting platforms, aimed at groups or individuals who are at work, or who might be contemplating a return to work,” the statement read.

“There have been numerous assaults perpetrated on employees at work or on their way to or from work. While criminal cases have been opened, unfortunately there have been only a limited number of arrests.”

The companies further called on AMCU leadership to take responsibility for discouraging, threatening or other criminal behaviour directed either against their own members or against management staff seeking to persuade their members to return to work.

To date, the strike had cost employees some R7.3-billion in lost income and the producers around R16.4-billion in lost revenue.

Additional reporting Natalie Greve.