Gold and platinum producer Sibanye-Stillwater says it will not increase its current wage offer to its workers.
Last week, Sibanye increased its offer to R850 a month from the previous offer of R700 which was rejected by unions.
The two major trade unions, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) declared a strike on the 9th of March demanding a monthly increase of R1 000.
Sibanye says workers participating in the unprotected strike have lost out in hundreds of thousands of wages.
Executive Vice President for Investor Relations at Sibanye Stillwater, James Wellsted, says this is their last offer.
“We need to consider all stakeholders, not just the unions and workers. We need to consider the national government, we contribute a lot to taxes, to local businesses and to the community. That’s why we are not going to go further than the current offer we’ve made. This is really our last offer and we hope that the unions’ leadership take it quite seriously because will not be increasing this offer and unfortunately it’s our employees and their members who are suffering. The employees have effectively lost out on two years of pay that they would have benefited from because of the no work no pay situation,” says Wellsted.
In the video below, wage talks impasse at Sibanye-Stillwater results in a strike:
