IMPALA Platinum, the world’s third-largest platinum producer, on Monday confirmed it had received fresh wage demands from mineworkers who already were allocated increases in April this year.
The miners are represented by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu).
Implats spokesman Bob Gilmour said on Monday the mineworkers wanted wage increases of 10% for category A workers, 9% for those in category B and 8% for category C workers.
Those increases had originally been due to take effect in July this year under a two-year wage agreement now in place, but were moved forward to April after a strike.
"The demand relates to the reinstatement of the July 1 increase — as per our wage agreement — which was implemented in April as part of the post-strike settlement," Mr Gilmour said.
NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka was adamant the company still needed to abide by the two-year wage agreement, saying the April increase was "a new one, and was not part of the initial wage agreement".
"We are still sticking to our wage agreement," he added.
Another Implats spokesman, Johan Theron, said that after talks with the interim workers’ committee and the NUM to resolve the April strike, Implats had regraded the composition of the workforce and granted adjustments to workers in other categories.
"We engaged with the NUM and the agreement came forward, a little earlier, which dealt with that," he said.
This had apparently addressed the concerns of the striking workers at the time and business at Implats resumed.
However, last week the interim workers’ committee approached management to demand that the same agreement be enacted now.
"We are engaging with them, trying to find out what informs the demand and we are trying to find a resolution to the impasse," Mr Theron said. "The whole industry is under pressure; whether the demands are reasonable is not for us to judge."
With Sapa
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