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AMCU denies 'selling out' workers ANA, The Citizen, 29 April 2015 The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) denied on Wednesday that it had sold out workers when it signed an agreement for retrenchments with Amplats. "It is a blue lie," said national organiser Dumisani Nkalitshani. Former members of Amcu alleged that the union agreed with Anglo American Platinum to retrench workers and close three of its mine in Rustenburg. Expelled members Godfrey Lindani and Gaddafi Mdoda accused Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa of setting workers against them after he allegedly told a rally last year that Mdoda, Lindani and others were signatories of an agreement which led to Amplats retrenching hundreds of workers and closing three of its mines. "Those guys are mad. They were part and parcel of delegation signing the agreement. They told president [Joseph] Mathunjwa that this is a good offer. There is no need to respond to their allegation, they are lying," Nkalitshani said. Lindani is one of the 474 workers who would be retrenched. He was given a medical exit appointment for Wednesday. "We are going for medical thereafter we will be unemployed. The union sold out workers with this retrenchment agreement. Workers are angry, they want the union to intervene," he said. Amplats said in 2013, it began consolidation of the company's Rustenburg mines in order to create a sustainable platinum industry for the benefit of all South Africans. "As part of this restructuring, there was extensive consultations with unions, facilitated by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration [ CCMA]. Where retrenchments were necessary, Anglo American Platinum committed to further explore employment opportunities for affected employees," spokesman Hulisani Rasivhaga said. "To date, 774 employees from the initial group of 1,248 have been placed in permanent jobs. We have been working closely with Amcu representatives on the mine to ensure that all alternative measures are explored to avoid the possible terminations, but unfortunately not all employees could be offered permanent jobs. The remaining 474 affected employees will therefore qualify for voluntary separation packages (VSP) and other benefits as per the collective agreement with the unions, concluded in 2013." He said Anglo American Platinum was aware that this was a difficult time for the affected employees. "Over the last few weeks we have been communicating with the unions and the affected employees as well as the communities - the Rustenburg Community Engagement Forum - on the retrenchment process and we commit ourselves to continue to engage with all the relevant parties. A social impact mitigation plan is in place to assist the affected employees." The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said it was going to challenged the decision to retrench workers. Last week NUM general secretary Frans Baleni said over 30,000 jobs were lost in the mining sector between 2012 and 2014. The platinum sector shed over 14,000 jobs. From: http://citizen.co.za/372359/amcu-denies-selling-out-workers/ -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
