Chamber of Mines and unions meet

Mining unions' request to move forward wage negotiations will be discussed at a meeting with the Chamber of Mines in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

"They have come forward to get a response to the proposal to bring forward wage negotiations," chamber senior executive Vusi Mabena said.

Representatives of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Solidarity and the United Association of SA would attend the meeting, at which a request by Cosatu, endorsed by NUM, for a commission of inquiry into the condition of the mining industry, would be discussed.

The meeting would deal with concerns about intimidation and lawlessness during the wildcat strikes currently spreading at gold, platinum and coal mines in the country.

Mabena said the current wage agreement would be in place until July 31, 2013. The normal process was that negotiations for the next financial year began two or three months before this.

He said the unions' call to fast-track these negotiations was a result of what happened at Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, Rustenburg.

In September, a six-week-long illegal and violent strike which claimed 46 lives, ended with mine management signing an agreement in favour of the workers' demands. They got increases of up to 22 percent, sparking concerns that it was setting a dangerous precedent.

On Wednesday, Mabena said the chamber felt exactly this had happened.

"Lonmin has set a significant precedent. Because of that precedent the unions are then saying you have put us in no position but to bring forward the negotiations to assist our members."

Mabena said the unions' request was a "natural reaction".

The chamber however cautioned that what happened at Lonmin needed to be looked at in its own right.

"You do not want to jeopardise a stable climate for negotiations because of one situation. If you do that, wage agreements are not worth the paper they are written on."

He said the situation whereby "Lonmin has made wildcat strikes contagious" needed to be fixed.

On Friday, independent facilitators would conduct an investigation with platinum mines and the Chamber of Mines to discuss the possibility of centralised wage negotiations in that sector. Previously platinum mines had not worked within the chamber's framework.

Mabena said the fact that Lonmin would be present at this facilitation was a positive step.

"Let's rather fix what is not right than to make everything wrong because of what happened."

NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka confirmed his union's presence at the meeting on Wednesday.

"We want wage negotiations brought forward," he said.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, Cosatu and NUM members embarked on a march in Orkney, North West, to deliver a memorandum to mine bosses.