SOUTH AFRICA/FILE: South Africa's President Jacob Zuma slams the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) accusing them of risking jobs with a lengthy strike

Record ID: 341659

  • Title: SOUTH AFRICA/FILE: South Africa's President Jacob Zuma slams the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) accusing them of risking jobs with a lengthy strike
  • Date: 5th May 2014
  • Summary: MARIKANA, RUSTENBURG, SOUTH AFRICA (FILE - JANUARY 23, 2014) (REUTERS) PLATINUM WORKERS ON STRIKE/ SINGING AND MARCHING OUTSIDE LONMIN MINE STRIKING WORKERS SINGING AND MARCHING, CARRYING PLACARD READING, "R12500 IF LONMIN CANNOT AFFORD THIS AMOUNT MUST LEAVE OUR COUNTRY !!! ..."
  • Embargoed: 20th May 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: South Africa
  • Country: South Africa
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA14314SNKL82OA3PD0FEA8HBG8
  • Story Text: South African President Jacob Zuma has accused the AMCU union of irresponsibility for dragging out a wage strike in the platinum sector for almost four months, telling reporters there was a risk of workers losing their jobs because of the dispute.
    Zuma, who has made almost no previous direct comment about the strike, took aim at the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) on Monday (May 5), underscoring political concerns about the stoppage and its impact on Africa's most advanced economy, ahead of general elections on Wednesday (May 7).

    "Both the employers and as well the workers, there is a limit to the strike, there's a limit to a conflict, you can't just have it forever, I said so, in my view, if you are an employer you must reach a point if you say these employees maybe are not good, you take a decision so that matter ends. You can't just prolong the thing forever, I said that they must be responsible," Zuma told a news conference.
    But a 15-week strike, the longest and most costly ever in South Africa's mines, looks to continue and no new wage talks are scheduled, according to AMCU.
    The strike at the world's top producers of the precious metal - Anglo American Platinum, Lonmin, and Impala Platinum has hit 40 percent of global production.
    The prospect of a painful restructuring in the platinum sector, including steep job cuts, has made the strike a headache for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and President Zuma as he vies for a second term in office.

    "The very fact that you can put a kind of a threshold that you are not prepared to move on it says there's something wrong with AMCU as a trade union movement, If you take the two elements I just referred to. In any negotiations you must be ready to give and take. You must be ready to compromise. You can't say I can't compromise come what may, is a very funny kind of leadership union. But those are matters, but you can't as government because this is a dispute between employers and employees, you can't come in and tell them what to do. You can engage, you can help," Zuma said.
    Jobs are a sensitive issue in South Africa, where the unemployment rate rose to 25.2 percent of the labour force, or 5.07 million people, in the first quarter of 2014 from 24.1 percent in the previous three months, official data showed on Monday.
    AMCU is high on the ANC radar screen after it emerged as the top union in the platinum belt in 2012, having poached tens of thousands of members from the once-unrivalled National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), a key political ally of the ruling party.
    The companies are offering increases of up to 10 percent and other benefits that they say would raise the overall minimum pay package to 12,500 rand ($1,200) a month by July 2017.
    AMCU had initially demanded an immediate increase to 12,500 rand, but softened that stance in March to staggered increases that would amount to 12,500 rand within three or four years.
    Wage talks collapsed over a week ago and the producers are taking their offer directly to employees, via cell phone text messages, radio ads and public meetings in their rural home villages far from the shafts where many have returned.
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