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ECLIFF Tantsi is national secretary for education at the National Union of Mineworkers.

BUSINESS DAY TV: The second round of three-day wage talks between gold producers and unions wound up yesterday. Unions will now report back to their members before negotiations reconvene on Monday.

While offers put forward by mining companies are a far cry from what unions are demanding for workers, a few sweeteners have been thrown in. Meanwhile the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has just concluded a wage agreement at Samancor.

Joining us on News Leader with more details on that is Ecliff Tantsi, national education secretary for NUM.

Ecliff … so two rounds of wage negotiations so far in the gold sector, they’re reconvening on Monday, it took four rounds for you to come to some sort of agreement at Samancor, so it just shows that there is a lot of posturing and I’m sure shadow-dancing behind the scenes to actually get to an agreement. How difficult was it to come together on the Samancor side?

ECLIFF TANTSI: Yes, by nature wage negotiations are difficult and emotional. But they don’t need emotions although they are emotional. By that I mean it was difficult, but as NUM we praise ourselves for finding solutions in complex situations, and whenever we enter negotiations, we don’t enter negotiations with preconceived positions or ideas. We enter negotiations with open minds, we enter negotiations ready to be persuaded. If there is a business case to think about, that makes sense to us, we seize that opportunity.

BDTV: So talk us through some of the thinking behind getting to the resolution you have gotten to with Samancor because you’ve now settled with mine employees receiving annual increases of as much as 14%, while furnace workers will get 10%-11%. What were the initial demands put on the table there?

ET: It was ranging around 20%-25% and, yes, it was around that range. Management responded and what we…the principle we used from the onset, we indicated that we were not going to use the traditional way of negotiations of moving the penny-penny approach. We said we needed to come up with something unique, we must come up with something that must set the trend. Management came to the party and it took us four rounds of negotiations.

BDTV: Your views on how the gold negotiations could go, because this is an industry that has come into the talks calling for the sustainability of the gold sector which finds itself with weaker gold prices, rising costs and is riding the sustainability ticket. Is NUM as likely to be as agreeable in the gold sector as it has been with Samancor?

ET: I don’t want to pre-empt what is going to happen there, but we’ve got a competent team and management must not enter into negotiations as cry-babies. They must make their case…as I indicated earlier on that we praise ourselves in finding sustainable solutions under difficult circumstances.

It’s not for the first time that the gold sector finds itself in a difficult situation and as parties, we normally find the resolutions under those circumstances. I want to mention the 1996 gold crisis where the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank wanted to flood the market with their gold reserves, and that threatened the gold price.

We all stood up, both the industry and the unions…it was a very unfamiliar stance taken by NUM but at the end of the day the industry was saved because a resolution was found. And I believe even under the current circumstances, a solution can be found and what is important is management must not use the current difficulties as a scare tactic. They must present their case to NUM.

NUM is a mature union and I strongly believe that they will analyse and find a solution to the problem.

BDTV: You talk about it being a mature union, it’s also a union that’s facing intense pressure from competitors, the likes of Amcu (Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union). Where you talk about rational thinking being brought into the equation here, do you see that changing the landscape within the collective bargaining system; influencing the kind of thinking NUM is taking to the table in the first place?

ET: From its inception, NUM has been under pressure from management, from the regime, from everybody. I’ve never been a member of any trade union…unfortunately I cannot talk about any other union. But I know that NUM is always under pressure, so for you to get the best of NUM you must put it under pressure…it’s like a teabag, put it in hot water so that you must get the best taste from it. So I strongly believe that under the circumstances we are not going to change our principles. We are a principled union and all what is happening is going to come and go, but the principles will never change.

BDTV: Let’s hope they don’t spend all their time drinking tea at the negotiations on Monday…