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ONCE again, as platinum sector wage talks start, we have the spectre of a strike being raised along with confusion about a R12 500 pay demand. And there is almost no reference to the union meetings that brought forward the demands that are being placed before the mining houses, nor of the various grades, pay scales and allowances.
What these membership meetings illustrate is that there are still areas in an increasingly autocratic world where an open democratic process operates. This is not something to be ignored: it should be hailed.
At none of these membership meetings of the Association of Mining and Construction Union (Amcu), the majority union in the sector, was the question of the need to strike raised. As general secretary Joseph Mathunjwa notes: “We have no demand for a strike.”
These meetings have apparently confirmed the demand for entry level pay of R12 500 a month, along with a “living out allowance” to be aligned with the increased cost of rents charged for mine housing stock. Amcu members also want the “split shift” system of underground working for two Saturdays a month to be abolished.
What is clear, and should have been over the years, is that being a miner is not a simple or single purpose job. In the first place, mine workers labour both above and below the earth’s surface and they have a variety of jobs that require different skills. As in other industries, there are also varying pay scales.
In the stygian depths, in the tunnels and stopes as well as at the rockface, the men who carry out the bone jarring and muscle-wrenching drilling are the most critical, and generally higher paid, workers. These are the rock drill operators. Without them, no mining takes place.
They were the platinum sector miners who launched the now iconic R12 5000 basic pay demand at Marikana in August 2012. But it was a demand quickly taken up by other underground workers, many of whom were on a basic pay level of R5 600 a month or less.
These differences in work regimes and wages tend to be ignored in media reports. And it is a fault mining houses choose, in their own interests, not to rectify, often quoting rock drill operator pay and bonuses to illustrate that miners are not as poorly paid as the unions claim. For their part, the unions tend to quote the basic rate paid to miners on the lowest grade. Media adds to the confusion by quoting both sides without context.
After the August 16 massacre four years ago, there were more strikes and tough negotiations. As a result, the lowest basic rate has risen substantially to some R8 000 a month, with improvements in allowances. Rock drill operators also improved their lot, with a basic rate of around R10 000. But there are also other benefits, including productivity bonuses.
Now a new round of talks has begun and Mathunjwa is expressing confidence that they will progress more smoothly than in the past. “Last time [the companies] thought they would break Amcu. Now they understand that we are here to stay,” he noted on Wednesday.
He also confirmed that the union would be open to negotiating separate agreements with different mines, taking account of job retention, costs and profits. “Or we can bargain centrally,” he said. Clearly, the requirement is for the mining houses to be honest about their financial positions.
But it would be naive to hope - as the great British reformer, William Morris did about a strike by British miners 123 years ago - that the approach in such talks would be to advance the “practical equality of economic condition amongst the whole population”.
However, that, in essence, is what the trade union movement has historically demanded: in a world of plenty, none should go hungry and all should have equal opportunity to develop to their fullest capacity. And the route to that was always seen as open democracy.
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