David McKay writes that all eyes will be on Joseph Mathunjwa's Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) on Sunday when his union stages a mass meeting near Sibanye Gold's Driefontein mine.
Amcu members are expected to use the meeting to debate and vote on whether to exercise their rights to a strike at the mines of Sibanye Gold, or possibly announce a rejection of the wage deal signed by three other unions with Harmony Gold and AngloGold Ashanti, which would then lead to a wider unprotected strike across the gold sector. McKay says that the attention is exactly as Mathunjwa would want it. Amcu may be chaotic in places, but its tactics are clear: be provocative, hardline, and unyielding in order to undermine the employer-labour movement status quo. “This may expose members to the hardships of strike action, help foment violence within the mining community, and make a mockery of the efforts of the Chamber of Mines, but it also wins Mathunjwa members.” Across both platinum and gold, Amcu is a more powerful union today than it was a year ago, and certainly more powerful than in 2013 when it controlled 17% of the gold mining industry (30% today). In more than three months of gold industry negotiations, Amcu has yielded not one jot to industry demands. Sibanye Gold CEO, Neal Froneman, has publicly stated that his employees don't want to strike - there's certainly less appetite than ahead of last year's five month platinum strike, he says - so it will be fascinating to see how Mathunjwa plays the mass rally on Sunday. McKay maintains that Mathunjwa will do what's best for business; his business that is.
- Read this opinion piece in full at Miningmx
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