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The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) might be on the cusp of a repeat performance: driving rival National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) out of the gold mines the way it did in the platinum sector.
Along the way, it could dismantle the decades-old bargaining forum maintained by the Chamber of Mines and other unions to keep wages more or less the same across the sector.
Amcu this week seemed to score an effortless concession from Sibanye Gold, the country’s largest gold mining company.
It called a strike for Wednesday, but suspended it when the company instead made an offer that improves on the wage deal the NUM and the two minority unions had signed
in October.
It is not a huge concession, amounting to an extra R125 on top of the basic wage of R7 887 by July 2017 in last year’s deal.
It was enough to enrage the NUM and cause minority union Solidarity to predict the imminent end of the sector’s old order.
On Thursday, Sibanye held separate meetings with the NUM and the two minority unions, United Association of SA (Uasa) and Solidarity, at the Chamber of Mines in Johannesburg.
The briefings about the offer were meant to be secret until today, but the NUM was so furious that it put out a disparaging press release the same evening accusing Sibanye of adopting Amcu as its “baby”.
NUM general secretary David Sipunzi called the meetings an attempt to “cover up” a unilateral decision as though it had been inclusive.
“The increment has not been put to us officially,” he told City Press on Friday.
The NUM refused to acknowledge it until the negotiations at the chamber were formally reopened with everyone at the table, he said.
“We won’t pretend we are a party to this thing.”
The NUM’s announcement of the secret offer caught Sibanye off guard, said the company’s spokesperson, James Wellsted.
Amcu is expected to have members vote on the offer at a mass meeting today at the Driefontein mine in Carletonville.
In the meantime, Sibanye is unable to answer any questions.
According to Wellsted, it is not even certain if this offer will require the sign-off of the other unions.
“We have to figure out if all have to agree. That’s part of the process,” he told City Press.
The NUM’s next move is not certain, but Sipunzi said he would wait until after the Amcu meeting today.
“Sibanye is messing up everything,” he told City Press.
When Amcu managed to win a relatively high wage deal from platinum companies after the historic five-month strike at platinum mines in 2014, there was an instant spike in its membership at unrelated mines.
Solidarity general secretary Gideon du Plessis told City Press that the offer had no effect on his members, but could cause massive damage later.
“My sense is that Amcu would’ve accepted even R1 just to have something better than what the NUM got,” he told City Press.
“This is a huge victory for them over the NUM and it was given to them on a platter. They didn’t even need to have a strike.”
He accused Sibanye of “poor tactics” and predicts that this will come back to haunt them when a new round of platinum wage talks begin in a month or so.
Sibanye is taking over Anglo American Platinum’s Rustenburg mines and will become the largest employer in the gold and platinum sectors.
According to Du Plessis, the concession breaks protocol and the consequence is going to be a disintegration of the chamber’s old bargaining system.
This, in turn, makes things very difficult for Solidarity and the other minor union, Uasa.
They are only in the chamber forum by the grace of the NUM in a kind of long-standing gentleman’s agreement, whereby they represent artisans and other historically white workers higher up the occupational hierarchy.
Amcu got admitted to this forum as a minority party in 2013 and challenged the NUM’s authority as the sole negotiator on behalf of the majority of mine workers.
Amcu has long declared that the inclusion of the minority unions is illegitimate.
If Amcu manages to displace the NUM in the gold mines, Solidarity and Uasa would probably have to rely on a recent amendment to the Labour Relations Act to stay relevant.
The amendment allows unions with small memberships that nevertheless form a discreet interest group to get recognition.
Amcu refused to sign gold mines’ 2013 wage deal and refused to sign last year’s one as well.
At AngloGold Ashanti and Harmony, the other three unions together have more than half the workforce as members. That allows them to sign off on a deal without Amcu.
By now, Amcu has the numbers at Sibanye to keep the other unions from forming an outright majority. It represents 44% of Sibanye workers, if the Chamber of Mines’ data are correct.
The other three unions together represent 49% – not a majority.
This slim 1% margin is what allowed Amcu to call out a protected strike this week.
Sibanye’s accommodative attitude reflects the changing fortunes of the gold mines.
Since the wage deal last year, a combination of higher dollar gold prices and the rand’s collapse has massively increased the gold sector’s profits.
