Gold Fields warns it may fire 15 000 striking workers

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Oct 17, 2012 at 10:19 AM

Gold Fields warns it may fire 15 000 striking workers
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By: Natasha Odendaal
16th October 2012
Updated 7 hours ago
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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Gold producer Gold Fields on Tuesday told all illegally striking workers to return to work by 14:00 on Thursday or face immediate dismissal.

This followed the breakdown of talks between unions and the Chamber of Mines (CoM), leaving Gold Fields and fellow gold producers AngloGold Ashanti and Harmony to develop their own solutions to the widespread strike action.

Gold Fields CEO Nick Holland said on a conference call with analysts and journalists that the company would be left with no choice but to dismiss more than 15 000 of the 23 500 striking workers if they failed to return to work.

The company obtained an interdict against the 8 500 strikers who downed tools two days ago at the KDC East mine, but would allow them time to return of their own accord.

The KDC West, Oryx and Beatrix workers reporting for duty by the Thursday afternoon deadline would qualify for the proposal as tabled at the CoM last week.

About 5 000 striking workers at the group’s Beatrix mine had filtered back to work by Tuesday, with only 1 200 employees still on strike.

Holland said Gold Fields had exhausted all its options to resolve the unlawful industrial action, which had cost the JSE-listed gold miner R1.2-billion in lost revenue.

Workers maintained an uncompromising and hard-line position, while levels of intimidation, violence and lawlessness had increased over the past few days.

He cited an incident this week wherein an employee was severely beaten and stabbed on mine property and his vehicle set alight. Responding security guards had live rounds shot at them after trying to assist.

Solidarity general secretary Gideon du Plessis this week warned of an escalation in unprotected strikes, intimidation and violence, as the workers would realise that they had achieved nothing and had nothing more to lose.

On Tuesday, smaller gold producer Gold One suspended operations at its marginal Ezulwini mine, after it fired 1 417 workers participating in an illegal strike.

Holland said Gold Fields had been engaging extensively with the police near the operations and have informed them of the potential mass dismissal. Further, joint operations centres were established and the industry and the police were working together to preserve law and order.

Meanwhile, with an 80% attendance, the company was now preparing to restart production at the Beatrix operations and expected this would occur within a week.

RESTRUCTURING MAY BE ‘INEVITABLE’

Meanwhile, Holland said Gold Fields still had to undertake an extensive analysis, but warned that restructuring might be “inevitable” if the strike continued for more than a week.

He was not able to disclose restart-up costs, as none of the operations had been idle for more than two weeks without the proper closure process being followed.

The KDC West operations were suddenly idled over a month ago, without preparation, and Holland warned of the unknown costs and duration of bringing the mine back into production.

Strike action hit the company’s Oryx mine on September 21, followed by the Beatrix operations on September 24.

About 11 000 of the 14 300 workers downed tools at the KDC West operations on September 9.

No strike action was reported at the group’s South Deep mine.

The CoM’s proposals tabled to the unions, included doing away with the category 3 level so that entry level in the gold mining industry became category 4 with a consequential adjustment to the entry-level salary rate; an allowance for rock-drill operators; the implementation of a new industry salary category and improved salaries for locomotive, loader, winch and water jet operators.

It also outlined adjustments in pay for other employees to preserve the integrity of the current job-grading framework.

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