/ 2 February 2005

Impromptu strike at AngloGold Ashanti mine

There was an impromptu strike at AngloGold Ashanti’s Tautona mine in Carletonville on Tuesday evening, due to problems with a shift boss and the manner in which mine workers’ grievances against him had been handled, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning, regional and branch leaders of the NUM met with the management of the Tautona mine and agreed that the shift boss in question would be removed from the mine, workers would work back the lost time to recover lost production and workers would not face any charges in relation to failure to report for duty.

“Management and the union will soon convene a bosberaad in order to address the question of relations at work,” the NUM said.

“In the past, this shift boss has been suspected of shoddy behaviour by workers and the matter was raised with mine management. In an attempt to resolve the issue, management transferred him to another section of the mine.

Unfortunately, his attitude wasn’t changing and even human resource management didn’t help resolve the matter speedily, hence this impromptu strike,” said Regional NUM Secretary for Carletonville Mbuyiseli Hibana.

“The good thing is that we have resolved the matter now and things will be back to normal,” Hibana added.

“Currently the NUM leadership is addressing the members at the mine to give them feedback on the outcome. The union is pleased with this agreement and with the fact that now the situation will be normalised,” said Hibana. – I-Net Bridge