The Association of Mine workers and Construction Union (Amcu) members have threatened a prolonged strike in the platinum mining sector. This if Sibanye Stillwater fails to accede to the demands of their counterparts in the gold sector.
They’ve embarked on a secondary strike, in support of co-workers in the gold sector.
Thousands of union members from platinum operations in the North West, were bused to Gauteng to join a march to the offices of the Minerals Council of South Africa. The sympathy strike in full swing Boarding buses to Johannesburg. This in a bid to pressure Sibanye Stillwater, to increase its wage offer . The 5.5% increase has been accepted by three other unions.
But AMCU wants more.
“If he wants the strike to end, he must change his mind and answer us the way we want to be answered,” says one Amcu member.
“We are giving him a warning that we are ready as Rustenburg members of Amcu. As majority in fact,” added another member.
Amcu has issued an ultimatum to the employer.
“We want to show the CEO that we are Amcu, and we’ll always be Amcu. If he does not cooperate with the organisation, he will see what he wants to see. By the way, this is an alarm to him, because we are also going for negotiations in the platinum belt around April or May. So, we are alarming him to say we are still Amcu that he knows. We are still ready. We are still in power, and we are still active,” says Amcu’s Totwana Mandisi.
Amcu members at Sibanye Stillwater have been on strike for nine weeks now. The mine says it has contingency plans in place to minimize financial losses in the platinum sector.
