South African trade union Solidarity on Monday announced it is about to launch a campaign to save workers’ jobs at the South African gold-mining operations of both world number-six gold miner Gold Fields and world number-four gold miner Harmony.
On October 18 this year, Harmony announced it was making a bid for Gold Fields, seeking to create the world’s largest gold-mining group, with Harmony offering Gold Fields shareholders 1,275 Harmony shares for every Gold Fields share held.
In turn, Gold Fields’ board has urged its shareholders to reject what it referred to as the unsolicited and hostile offer by Harmony.
Solidarity will present both companies with concept agreements, demanding guarantees that no job losses will result from the “controversial” Harmony bid for Gold Fields and the proposed merger of Gold Fields’ international mining assets with those of Canada’s Iamgold, Solidarity said in a statement.
On Friday, Harmony CE Bernard Swanepoel said in a statement that no more than between 1 000 and 1 500 jobs will be lost as a result of the merger of Harmony and Gold Fields, and that the jobs losses will take place at a management level.
“Before the transactions are finalised, we want an agreement in which the rights of the workers are protected. If such an assurance is not forthcoming, we shall work actively to prevent the transactions,” said Solidarity spokesperson Dirk Hermann.
The agreement will also ask the companies to confirm their commitment to South Africa and to adopt an approach that will not only consider the interests of the shareholders, but also those of other stakeholders such as the workers, the environment and the community.
The trade union plans a number of protest actions, including correspondence with the shareholders, discussions with other trade unions and a campaign to muster public support, should agreement not be reached by means of normal negotiations.
The trade union will persist until next Friday in its attempts to reach an agreement through negotiation, after which public action will follow to compel the agreements, Solidarity said.
The trade union drew up the agreement after high-level talks between Solidarity and the managements of Harmony and Gold Fields.
According to Hermann, both companies have verbally indicated that they concur in broad terms with the agreement.
“We do not, however, want agreement for the sake of public relations. We want actual written agreements. If the shareholders are brought around to one side or the other by public smooth talk, the workers will have to suffer the consequences. Public cajolery will offer them no protection.
“Verbal assurances and pronouncements made at media conferences are simply not good enough,” Hermann said.
On the day Harmony announced its bid for Gold Fields, Solidarity expressed its concern that thousands of job losses might result from a Gold Fields takeover by Harmony. This came after Harmony announced that it was planning to cut costs by 15% following a successful takeover.
Harmony also has a poorer record in terms of job losses than Gold Fields does, Solidarity said.
In reaction, Harmony said it is not planning large-scale retrenchments of workers.
“If this is the case, then Harmony will surely not object to the signing of an agreement that confirms its public utterances in writing,” Solidarity said.
“There is currently great concern among Gold Fields employees, and it is expected from both companies to demonstrate their commitment to the workers. In all previous debates, the subjects under discussion have been share values and yields for shareholders only. We now want to force the debate to encompass job security and the workers’ interests,” Hermann stated. — I-Net Bridge