The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the Solidarity trade union pledged their support on Tuesday for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in its fight against Harmony Gold over the possible closure of at least six mine shafts.
Harmony announced on Friday that it might have to close the shafts, which have become uneconomic to mine due to the current gold price in rands per kilogram. This would result in at least 6Â 300 workers losing their jobs.
Cosatu said the NUM membership has made “important concessions” regarding the implementation of continuous operations at Harmony’s mines, in return for an agreement that the shafts earmarked for closure would remain open and that more jobs would be created.
“Yet now, 12 days before the elections, Harmony announces the immediate closure of four shafts,” Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said in a statement.
“This is completely contrary to the spirit of the Growth and Development Summit resolution, which committed us as a nation, including the business sector, to make job creation the top national priority.”
He said Cosatu is also concerned about the company citing the strength of the rand as a reason for closing the shafts.
“While not accepting in any way that this justifies such a massacre of jobs, Cosatu reiterates its demand for interest rates to be further reduced in order to bring down the overvalued rand to a more realistic level so that South African producers can compete on world and domestic markets and thus save jobs.”
Cosatu said it fully supports any action by the NUM to defend its members.
“The impact of so many retrenchments will not only have a devastating effect on the individual workers who lose their jobs, and on their families, but will adversely affect the whole economy.”
Solidarity said in a statement that it supports the NUM in its “declaration of war” against Harmony.
“We shall join NUM in the trenches to fight the dismissals,” said Solidarity spokesperson Dirk Hermann.
“Solidarity is to appoint a task team to investigate the lay-offs.”
He said the task team will investigate if Harmony’s statement that the strong rand has rendered certain mines uneconomical is justified.
“It makes no sense, considering that gold traded at a record level of $420 last week.”
The union also spoke out against Harmony forcing the NUM to accept continuous operations.
“Harmony is planning to close down the entire Free State — not only shafts, but also workshops, offices and warehouses,” said Specs Vermeulen, Solidarity’s national mining organiser.
“Thousands of mineworkers are to lose their jobs. The Free State gold fields are being turned into ghost towns.”
Meanwhile, the NUM has suspended wage negotiations with Harmony Gold.
“We see no reason to continue negotiating with Harmony in this situation of uncertainty,” NUM spokesperson Welcome Mboniso said on Tuesday.
“Besides, how can the company expect us to negotiate wages and conditions of service for people they have already placed on a retrenchment path?”
He said the intended closure of the shafts will affect the workers involved in the wage negotiations.
On Monday the NUM lashed out at Harmony for announcing the possible closure of the shafts.
Harmony did not want to comment on Monday on the accusations made by the union. Harmony spokesperson Ferdi Dippenaar said the company will only able to comment on Wednesday after a meeting has been held with the union and also between the union and its members. — Sapa
Union suspends Harmony wage talks