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Johannesburg - Miners have vowed to halt operations at Anglo Platinum (Amplats) [JSE:AMS] even if retrenchments are scaled back to 5 000 from the initial 14 000 announced, a worker affiliated with mining union Amcu told Reuters.
Amplats planned to axe 14 000 jobs and mothball two mines to return to profit but industry sources told Reuters that the final plan would be pared back, with as few as 5 000 jobs cut and an announcement expected on Thursday or Friday.
Workers have signalled they will launch protest strikes even if the job cuts fall far short of the initial target.
Militant labour leaders, who closed mines in the surrounds of Rustenburg for a day in January when the plans were first unveiled, have said even a scaled back proposal to cut 5 000 or so jobs would be unacceptable.
"Obviously, we will not allow this to happen. If they close one operation, we have vowed among ourselves that all of these operations must stop," Evans Ramokga, an Amplats miner and activist associated with newcomer Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), told Reuters by phone.
But Amcu leaders said in Johannesburg they would not endorse any illegal protest actions or strikes.
"We are not supporting anything like that. Amcu does not vouch for unprotected (illegal) industrial action," Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa said.
Wage talks
Mathunjwa also told a media briefing Amcu would submit its wage demands to individual platinum companies in two weeks' time but did not say what workers would push for.
The upcoming round of wage talks in the mining sector will be among the toughest ever as company margins shrink and prices fall while worker protests had been on the rise, fuelled by the glaring income disparities.
Social tensions are running high after violence rooted in a labour turf war killed more than 50 people last year and sparked illegal strikes that hit production.
For Amplats, reining in costs and cutting production to such an extent that it lifts the price of platinum, used for emissions-capping catalytic converters in automobiles, is absolutely crucial after it fell into a loss last year.
"From the point of view of Amplats itself, both numbers will be critical, how many ounces will you produce, but also how many people, because that impacts on the cost base," said Alison Turner, an analyst at Panmure Gordon.
It is also vital for Anglo American [JSE:AGL] as it tries to turn around at a time when commodity prices are starting to slump.
Union turf warAmcu emerged as the dominant union in the platinum shafts last year after a bloody tussle that saw it poach tens of thousands of members from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), a key political ally of the ANC.
The union power struggle explains why the ANC and the government have taken such a hard line on the proposed Amplats cuts, a striking contrast to past positions when the gold industry was allowed over the course of a decade to cut tens of thousands of jobs to remain sustainable.
When Amplats announced the plan in January, the mining minister furiously accused the company of betrayal.
Amplats has been in talks with the government for months to hammer out the restructuring plan.
General elections are due next year, and for the ANC, the union war means it has lost tens of thousands of potential voters and their many dependents as the NUM is a vehicle for campaigning and getting out the working class vote.
- Reuters
