Workers at diamond miner De Beers in Kimberley will on Thursday protest against planned retrenchments, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said.
Representatives from the tripartite alliance — the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions — are expected to address the march, said NUM spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka in a statement on Tuesday.
The union claims that retrenched workers are being evicted from their homes.
The company has retrenched close to 2 000 employees in the past two years, said the NUM’s regional secretary in the Northern Cape, Tshimane Montoedi.
”While De Beers promised its retrenched workers that they will be taken back when opportunities appear, it has been unable to do so despite the development of what it calls the Big Hole to which it invested R50-million,” the union said.
De Beers issued notices in November last year, warning of possible retrenchments at its Cullinan and Kimberley mines.
Following a series of meetings between the company and the NUM, the company agreed to withdraw the notices. A new notice was issued to the union, which restarted the 60-day statutory consultation period from December 14 2006.
De Beers said the proposed retrenchment of workers was ”due to operational requirements and in order to return these operations to profitability”.
In February this year, De Beers said it planned to sell its Cullinan and Kimberley Underground mines as well as a number of residual and dormant assets in and around Kimberley, The Associated Press reported. — Sapa