Last night saw the signing of a three-year wage agreement between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and coal producers.
Union spokesperson, Livhuwani Mammburuu, told FTW Online today (Thursday) that the coal mining companies had accepted the amendments made to their last-ditch offer yesterday. Members then gave NUM the mandate to sign the offer, thereby narrowly avoiding a strike that the Chamber of Mines said would have had a negative impact on production in the sector.
The strike, scheduled to begin on Sunday November 19, was postponed on Monday as the Chamber had requested a meeting in order to bring the union a new wage offer from coal producers.
Mammburuu said that the offer had been reviewed by NUM, reported back to its members and then sent back to CoM with a few amendments.
“NUM was waiting for a response from the Chamber of Mines on the amendments before a decision to accept the offer – or go ahead with the proposed strike action – could be made by its members,” he said. “Last night, members made the decision to sign the agreement.”
Mammburuu said, however, that NUM members working at Kangra Coal in Piet Retief, Mpumalanga, would be moving forward with the strike action as they thought the mining company’s wage offer was too low and they could not accept it.
“These members will issue a 48-hour notice to Kangra Coal on Saturday [November 25] and the strike will commence on Monday morning,” he added.
