Are the mines finished firing?

The platinum industry shed roughly 20 000 jobs in the year to the end of March as the major mining companies wrapped up their restructuring plans.

The latest statistics from the department of mineral resources show employment in the sector rapidly dropping back to below 2010 levels.

This drop already includes Lonmin and Anglo Platinum’s major announced job cuts.

At the same time, the long-term decline in the gold sector seems to have bottomed out at 115 000 jobs.

This is the first time in years that the gold mines have not decreased their employment over the course of a year.

Meanwhile, the less politically charged coal sector has continued to contract after reaching a peak of 90 000 jobs back in 2013.

It shed almost 10% of its workforce in 2014 and last year.

Wage talks in the platinum sector are quietly chugging along after the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) publically announced its opening demands last month.

The mines are yet to take a public position.

The deal the union struck with the three major platinum companies in 2014 raised real wages for “entry-level” workers by about 14%.

Surprisingly, the department’s statistics show that the average wage rose faster in the gold sector than in the platinum sector.

These averages include higher-paid employees, but still show an overall trend.

More than half of the value of Amcu’s demands this year relates to allowances, not the R12 500 a month basic wage that has become its calling card.

These include more than doubling the controversial living-out allowance, even though it was effectively consigned to the scrap heap in the 2014 deal.

That deal froze the allowance, making it shrink over time in real terms because of inflation.

Although it is customary in South African wage talks for the parties to start with unrealistic opening positions, the recent Amcu demands seem out of kilter with the bargaining power its members have managed to exert in the past.

At Lonmin, for which City Press has a current wage breakdown, the Amcu demands could come to a 94% increase for entry-level workers owing to the inclusion of new allowances.

Without those, the demand still comes to an increase of more than 60%.

The 2014 deal, won after a historic and painful five-month strike, got workers an overall increase in remuneration of about 27%, spread over three years.