Stunting growth: Continuing union conflict is affecting investor confidence.
The disagreements have , prompted fears of another strike.
The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) and platinum giant Lonmin have failed to see eye to eye in recent negotiations, prompting fears of another strike.
But industry players say the union is being unreasonable and its demand that two bargaining forums be merged is born of bitterness.
With the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) due to pack up and leave its mine office by July 16 – if it can't regain some of its lost membership – Amcu and Lonmin have come unstuck on just one matter of dispute: Amcu's desire to collapse two collective bargaining forums into one.
Lonmin workers are divided into two bargaining forums – one for lower level workers and another for skilled workers. Amcu has the majority representation among unskilled and semi-skilled workers, but it is now demanding that the smaller, skilled group of workers be brought onto the same bargaining platform, even though it holds little membership.
But it has proved difficult to find common ground and, on June12, Amcu threatened to serve a 48-hour strike notice on the mine should its demands not be met by the end of the day – which was the case.
Stakeholders are at a loss to explain the union's motives for pushing the matter.
Gideon du Plessis, general secretary of Solidarity, said Amcu's bid to become the sole trade union may be in pursuit of "sweet revenge" against the NUM. And if it had its way, Solidarity and Uasa (previously known formally as the United Association Of South Africa) would become casualties in the war between the two.
He said dissolving the secondary platform would automatically make Amcu the majority union, but this goes against the principle of freedom of association – members would be forced into a bargaining forum that they do not wish to belong to.
The two forums were initially set up, Du Plessis said, because of job categories.
Pure bitterness
"Skilled workers have totally different working conditions and more responsibilities."
NUM spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka said Amcu's bid to demolish the skilled bargaining forum made little sense and amounted to "pure bitterness". He said that in threatening to strike the union showed a complete "lack of industrial relations understanding" as the matter is due to go to arbitration on June 26 anyway.
Seshoka likened Amcu's demand to the ANC (hypothetically) insisting it held a majority vote in the Western Cape, despite overwhelming support for the Democratic Alliance in the province.
However, Du Plessis said there were some benefits Amcu would enjoy if its demands were met – the more members a union has, the more shop stewards it is entitled to. It would also not hurt the union's pocket. Union fees are 1% of a basic salary, and Amcu may believe having such members on board, assuming they would join Amcu when all other options were removed, would be beneficial for its balance sheet.
Du Plessis said the threat of a strike in this instance was a high-risk option. He noted that, if the strike were unprotected all the union's members could be dismissed and the union sued for damages – which could easily be hundreds of millions of rands, enough to bankrupt it.
A spokesperson for Lonmin said there was little difference between the union's proposal and the company's. But when it comes to the skilled workers collective bargaining forum, "there are existing and valid agreements … and whatever happens we need to honour those agreements".
Despite repeated attempts, the Mail & Guardian was unable to reach Amcu officials for comment.