Protesting miners cause standstill
"The mine has too many subcontractors that are eating up its pocket"
Msobo Coal in Breyten has been hit by another protest as its employees brought the mine’s operations to a standstill on Monday in solidarity with recently retrenched members.
A source close to the situation said that earlier last year 171 employees were retrenched with two weeks’ salary paid to them. The mine also promised to send those employees on skills development training as agreed between the mine and the employees’ representatives.
However, to date the mine is yet to keep the promise.
A further 303 employees were retrenched in November last year amid discussions with the employer to salvage the situation.
This time, the employer is allegedly not willing to pay out two weeks’ salary and is insisting on only one week’s compensation, which is not well received by the employees and its union.
According to the source, the mine has since halted underground mining operations and have optimised operations on the surface due to low currency and the coal price.
Employees are also fuming because the mine does not want to consider management of job losses and intervention mechanisms as laid down by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) agreed upon by all stakeholders.
The first point on the 10-point intervention mechanism agreed upon by all stakeholders is delaying the implementation of retrenchments, which the employees feel the employer has ignored.
It is also alleged that due to the shortage in numbers, the current manpower is insufficient to meet stringent targets, which has resulted in their salaries being cut.
“The mine has too many subcontractors that are eating up its pocket. They need to be gotten rid of, because they are also affecting our jobs,” said one of the employees.
The employees further suggest the mine has not played open cards with them, as their export operations are still ongoing after they appointed Isambane Open Cast to supply them with coal.
The source also said that the mine does not comply with its Social Labour Plan. The DMR has warned them about this and issued a notice until end of February to comply or face closure.
At the time of going to print, the mine was unavailable to comment.
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