Industrial action halts Rustenburg underground operations – Implats
miningweekly.com
By: Chanel Pringle
25th August 2009
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – South African miner Impala Platinum (Implats) was hoping a meeting with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on Wednesday morning would provide it with clarity on why the majority of underground workers at its Rustenburg operations had gone on strike, spokesperson Bob Gilmour said.
By Tuesday afternoon, about 20 000 workers were still on strike at the operations.
A week earlier, the union had threatened that its members would go on strike over a disagreement on a wage offer, but, at the weekend, said that it had suspended the strike after agreeing on an improved wage offer.
Implats’ latest offer met the NUM’s demands of a 10% increase for all categories of workers and would only be implemented for a one-year period, instead of the usual two-year agreement.
This was an improvement on the 9,5% increase for upper level mineworkers and a 10% increase for lower level mineworkers to close the wage gap.
Production at the Rustenburg operations had continued as normal during the day shift on Monday. The strike action had started with the night shift, Gilmour said.
Different branches of the NUM were reportedly split on whether to accept the new wage agreement or not.
The company was not certain when the mineworkers would end their strike action, noting that the situation was exacerbated by the fact that the striking workers had made no demands from the company.
Implats said that its Marula operations and its refining operations were not impacted on by the strike.
Implats’ Rustenburg operations had produced 1,04-million ounces of platinum in the 2008 financial year.
Production at the operations had already been impacted on by a two-week shutdown of all mechanised sections in July.
South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources had suspended production at all mechanised sections of the operations on July 21, after a fall-of-ground incident at the No 14 shaft on July 20.
The suspension was lifted in early August, with the company resuming full output on August 10.
At the time, the platinum-miner estimated that the production loss from the closed sections amounted to about 700 oz/d. |
