South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has called off its strike action, which was planned for Wednesday, after the union and Harmony Gold reached an agreement late on Tuesday.
The strike, if it went ahead, would have led to at least 20 000 workers downing tools at Harmony’s gold mines, the union said in a statement.
“Following our talks today the company has withdrawn, with immediate effect, the notices of retrenchment and what they termed restructuring that would have effectively led to the closure of shafts. In view of these developments, the union has resolved to call off the intended strike. We have also agreed with Harmony that we should find ways of rebuilding our relationship and address the manifestations of racism within the company,” said NUM Free State chairperson Tanki Malefane.
Both NUM and Harmony have re-committed themselves to their standing agreement, which entails agreement on: continuous operations and proper staffing, retraining and re-skilling of surplus workforce, transfer of workers from declining shafts to points of growth and the restructuring of the Harmony operations. – I-Net Bridge