Amcu members suspended for Kroondal strike
Amcu claims that its members at Sibanye Gold’s Kroondal platinum mine have been suspended following a wildcat strike that began last week.
|||Johannesburg – The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) on Tuesday claimed that its members at Sibanye Gold Kroondal platinum mine operations had been suspended following a wildcat strike that began on Friday last week.
Amcu members began an indefinite strike at the mine on Friday to push for company transport because some of their members were allegedly being attacked after working night shift.
The trade union is the majority union with about 7 000 workers at the Kroondal mine in the Rustenburg platinum belt.
Sibanye Gold acquired the Kroondal mine when it bought Aquarius Platinum in October last year for $295 million.
Sibanye obtained a court order to stop the strike. But, in a statement on Tuesday, Amcu insisted that its strike was legal.
“Our members who embarked on a legal day-long strike at Anglo Platinum Mine (Aquarius) which was recently bought into by Sibanye at the Kroondal operations in Rustenburg, has been suspended following the mine’s court application claiming our strike was illegal,” Amcu said.
“We lawfully obtained the strike certificate on the 25th of January 2016. We timeously strived to engage the employer in efforts to resolve the matters that we had brought forward but those negotiations resulted in a deadlock,” Amcu said.
“Subsequently, we served management with a strike notice on Tuesday 24 May at 3pm. The last shift was on Thursday, 26 May at 10pm, making it exactly 48 hours before the strike commenced as per the labour laws.”
Amcu said on Friday, it resumed with the strike until Monday afternoon when the judge ruled in mine management’s favour.
“The interdict ruled that we discontinue with the strike and our members to return to work accordingly,” Amcu said.
“However, this does not mean that we will park our discussions regarding the demands. We will be going back to the labour court on the 26 August 2016 to resolve the matter and are meeting with Aquarius Mine management on Thursday to continue discussing these pressing issues.”
Sibanye spokesperson, James Wellsted, was not immediately available on Tuesday, but on Monday had said the court order meant that any further labour stoppage would be illegal.
African News Agency