Chamber of Mines confirms receipt of Cosatu's memorandum

Cape Town – The Chamber of Mines in a statement confirmed the receipt of the memorandum that trade union federation Cosatu presented earlier on Friday.

Dr Elize Strydom, the Chamber’s Senior Executive, Employment Relations accepted the memorandum at its offices in Hollard Street.

“We hear you. We will take this memorandum. I will call the leaders and CEOs (of mining companies) and we will respond to the memorandum,” Strydom told the protestors.

READ: Improving labour relations requires trust - Chamber of Mines

Cosatu on Friday held protests countrywide and handed over various memoranda to stakeholders in government and business. It called among other things for an outright ban of labour brokering and e-tolls, and the imminent establishment of a national minimum wage.

Cosatu’s march coincided with Statistics South Africa’s release of the quarterly employment figures. At a media conference in Pretoria earlier on Friday, Statistician-general Pali Lehohla said there were 67 000 less jobs in the economy in the second quarter of 2016 compared to the previous quarter.

The mining industry shed jobs for the eight consecutive quarter, losing altogether 32 000 jobs in the past year. 

Lehohla said it was worrying that although mining production has increased in the last couple of months the rate of job losses in the sector outpaced production losses. “We’ve come to the conclusion that it has to do with mechanisation as a substitution for labour,” he concluded.