Labour unions say they are shocked by Sibanye-Stillwater’s plans to retrench around 2,000 employees at mines in the Free State and Gauteng.
The Johannesburg-based precious metals producer has launched a Section 189 process at its Beatrix 4 shaft in the Free State and Kloof 1 and 2 plants in Gauteng.
Sibanye has pointed the finger at Eskom and its operational challenges.
However, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said that the company was using retrenchments to settle old scores.
Unions have labeled Sibanye-Stillwater’s plans to restructure its gold operations, and potentially retrench more than 2,000 workers, as a “form of punishment” for a three-month strike at its operations this year.
The metal producer said that its operations were making a loss and the affected employees would be the latest casualties in the long-term decline of South Africa’s once thriving gold industry.
Trade union federation Cosatu said that currently, the mining sector had already reduced its workforce to just over 400,000.
Sibanye, which is the largest employer in South Africa’s mining sector, said that it was consulting with stakeholders to mitigate the possible retrenchments and look for alternatives to the downscaling of operations.
-EWN
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