/ 31 July 2006

NUM members on strike at Kumba

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has been on strike since 6pm on Sunday at Kumba Resources and the union will be consulting its members at 6pm on Monday regarding Kumba’s latest offer, NUM Kumba representative Jackie Tshimanegape said.

Tshimanegape said there had been a big strike turnout of NUM’s 4 000 members at Kumba.

There had been no talks with Kumba since last week Thursday night, he added.

The latest Kumba offer was for a 7% increase at the higher levels and 8% at the lower levels, Tshimanegape said.

Building, Allied, Mining and Construction Workers’ Union (Bamcwu) spokesperson Bongani Mthembu said that the union’s 480 members at the Sishen iron ore mine in the Northern Cape were on strike.

Bamcwu members were picketing at the Sishen mine, he added.

Trade union Solidarity spokesperson Reint Dykema said that the union was consulting its 1 500 members at Kumba regarding the company’s latest offer.

There were some Solidarity members who were willing to accept the latest Kumba offer, while there were others, especially at the Sishen mine, which didn’t want to accept the offer, he added.

The statement put out by Kumba at the weekend regarding an agreement between the company and Solidarity was “premature” as the union was still getting a mandate from its members, Dykema said. — I-Net Bridge