Platinum producer AngloPlatinum improved its wage offer during talks with the National Union of Mineworkers (Num) last week, chief negotiator Oupa Komane said on Sunday.
“We believe it is an offer our members may consider”.
Workers would be consulted on Monday over the increase on the initial 8% and 7.5% offers. The union could not immediately disclose the new figures.
During talks on Thursday, Num also lowered its demand from 15% to 12.5% for lower grades and to 11% for higher grades, he said.
“The platinum company increased to 5%, its contribution to the minimum wage. The Num welcomed the move.”
The union also lowered its R3 000 living out allowance to R2 000 and argued for a home ownership allowance of between R2 500 and R5 000.
Num is the largest collective bargaining agent at AngloPlatinum, representing over 30 000 members.
Burning trash
In a separate dispute, more than 200 000 water, sanitation and refuse workers seeking 18% wage increases are expected to march in Johannesburg on Friday after setting fires and looting vendors at rallies in Cape Town this week.
The NUM, with more than a quarter million members in various sectors, has also threatened a strike at Eskom after rejecting a 7% pay rise offer.
Any significant pay rises would affect the utility’s strained balance sheet and could lead to further steep rises in electricity tariffs.
Further wage hikes will make it more costly to hire the workers needed to bring power by 2014 to the 25% of the country’s households that still have no access to electricity.
Wage deals over the past years of double to triple the inflation rate have made the country less competitive by driving up the cost of a workforce which is already more expensive and less efficient that those in emerging market peers.
But the African National Congress (ANC), in an alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), does not want to antagonise a group that has supplied it with millions of votes, by pushing workers to accept more modest pay increases. – Sapa, Reuters