Celani Sikhakhane
Wage negotiations that went on until midnight led to the end of a three-month strike by Sibanye-Stillwater mine workers.
The negotiations, which were held on Friday until the early hours of Saturday, saw unions and the employer finally agree on a R3,000 wage increase for all workers.
The strike started in March and it has cost workers billions in monthly wages.
The strike led to the disruption of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s speech during the Workers Day event in Rustenburg, North West.
The president had to be whisked away by police in an armoured Nyala.
Workers from Sibanye-Stillwater demanded him to address their salary issue on that day.
Senior vice president of Sibanye-Stillwater, James Wellsted, confirmed that an agreement has been signed ending the three-month strike first called by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (AMCU) on 8 March. It had been preceded by around eight months of negotiations.
“The wage agreement was supposed to have been signed on 6 June after intervention by the Commission of Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). The CCMA’s intervention had been requested by Sibanye-Stillwater,” said Wellsted.
Following the CCMA’s mediation, unions were given the mandate to accept a three-year deal, offering a R1,000 per month increase in the first year and then increasing to R900/month and R750/month in the second and third year respectively.
This was equal to an average 6.3% increase over the three years, while artisans and miners were offered a 5%, 5.5% and 5% wage uplift over the period. But this category of employee was excluded from the ex-gratia payment which was intended only for category 4 to 8 employees.
As a result, the NUM and AMCU decided not to sign the agreement. They also called for the extension of the wage agreement terms to UASA and Solidarity, unions that had joined a negotiating coalition with NUM and AMCU before accepting an offer from Sibanye-Stillwater.
During subsequent discussions last week, the CCMA threatened to withdraw from the process, raising the risk that the strike at the gold mines would enter a fourth month.
“We conceded R3,000 to miners and artisans,” said Wellsted on Saturday. The unions accepted that all unions would receive the new terms.
