Draft of deal calls for seven per cent wage increases
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) — South Africa's AMCU union and Anglo American Platinum have agreed to a new pay deal, days before Sibanye Gold is due to take over Amplats' Rustenburg operations which employ thousands of AMCU members.
"The agreement reached will now be binding to Sibanye for the next three years," the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) said in a statement.
Amplats spokeswoman Mpumi Sithole confirmed that an agreement had been reached. Neither AMCU nor Amplats immediately disclosed details and the union said a mass meeting of its members would be held on Sunday.
Sithole said Amplats would unveil details on Friday. A draft agreement obtained by Reuters showed the offer was for pay increases of at least 7 per cent over the next three years.
The draft agreement also contains a "peace obligation", which says no members of the unions "shall be entitled to embark upon any industrial action whatsoever".
AMCU members have embarked on several, often violent, wildcat strikes in recent years, including one at Lonmin's Marikana mine in 2012 that resulted in police shooting dead 34 strikers, the deadliest security incident in post-apartheid South Africa.
A source at another South African platinum producer, Impala Platinum, said it had offered a similar deal that also included a "peace clause".
"We've learned from the recent past and decided that a peace clause is best practice," the source said.
A union source told Reuters that Lonmin's offer was also similar. A spokeswoman for the company said she could not comment at this stage but negotiations "have gone well".
The Amplats' draft agreement says wage hikes will be 7 per cent or US$72 per month, "whichever is greater". For lower-paid miners earning base pay of around 8,000 rand a month this would represent an increase of 12 to 13 per cent, which compares with a current inflation rate of 6.1 per cent.
But drought has fuelled food price inflation, which was running at 11.3 per cent in September, and this in turn impacts wage demands as the average South African miner typically has several dependants he or she needs to feed.
AMCU, known for its militancy and strident tone, had been pushing for wage hikes of close to 50 per cent but said last week that it had reached "agreements in principle" with Amplats, Implats and Lonmin.
Amplats, majority-owned by Anglo American, agreed just over a year ago to sell the labour-intensive Rustenburg mines, where the company's AMCU membership is concentrated.
South Africa's platinum industry is still recovering from a five-month strike that AMCU led in 2014.
