The New Age reports that three unions on Wednesday demanded that AEL Mining Services, a subsidiary of JSE-listed AECI Group, put to an end to what they claim are practices of "exploitation, discrimination and oppression".
The unions claim black employees are discriminated against and white staffers with little experience or proper qualifications are promoted.
Close to a 1,000 members of the General Industries Workers Union of SA (Giwusa), the SA Chemical Workers Union (Sacwu) and the Chemical Energy Paper Printing Wood and Allied Workers Union (Ceppwawu) marched to the head office of AEL and handed over their demands to the company's leadership.
The unions' representative, John Appolis, said: "Workers are fed up with the exploitation, discrimination and oppression at the hands of AEL management. One of the main sources of this exploitation and discrimination is the grading system." He said the system favoured management. "It allows management to control workers, apply favouritism and exploit workers. There is no logic to the grades 25 to grade 28. It is only a tool to pay workers less. Workers demand the scrapping of all grades below grade 28." "Disciplinary policies are applied differently. Recently a white manager confronted a black female employee demanding to know why she was using a company vehicle to drive township kids around but white managers can use company vehicles to drive their wives and families about."
AECI yesterday denied the allegations, saying it was "a proudly South African, equal opportunity company" and took the matter seriously. Fulvia Putero, AECI's corporate communications and investor relations manager, said: "Given our country's history, we're particularly aware of issues regarding discrimination and take allegations of racism extremely seriously." Putero said that, as an AECI Group company, "AEL adheres to the same principles of fairness, equality and non-discrimination. These principles are non-negotiable and are at the heart of the values that underpin all of AECI's businesses."
Putero also said AEL "has a long and proud history of engagement with all unions" that represent its workforce. "It has, and will continue to have, an open door policy in dealing with its workers' legitimate concerns. This includes allegations of racism."
The unions disagree. "Black and white employees can do the same job but not earn the same. Racism is especially alive in places like Kuruman and Witbank," Appolis said.
- The original of this report by Samuel Mungadze is on page 15 of The New Age of 24 November 2016
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