FOLLOW UP: AMCU dismisses “hostage” allegations at Gold One
Night shift miners have been underground since Sunday evening.
Over 500 miners remained underground Monday evening, refusing to resurface from East Modder’s Gold One mine.
It’s alleged that the workers want the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) as their representative and not the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
Although it was reported that AMCU representatives held the night shift workers “hostage” to prevent them from leaving, the union dismissed those allegations citing that it is a sit-in to allow negotiations.
AMCU’s general secretary Jeff Mphahlele said the sit-in is to force the mine to make way for negotiations and allow the majority union to lead the workers.
“We applied for the majority rights of the mine in March and submitted 1 200 new membership applications to them, which they acknowledged and told us to give them time to verify memberships,” said Mphahlele.
“They have been quiet after that, but we have been making follow-ups with them since April. It was only then that they told us that they are unable to recognise us as they have signed a close shop agreement with NUM.”
A close shop agreement allows for the elected union to lead for a period of three years until the next elections. Employees are bound to comply with the leading union.
Mphahlele confirms that they questioned the validity of the agreement, citing that AMCU has majority membership within the mine.
“The mine employs 1 870 employees and AMCU has recruited 1 700, of those employees; it’s only 170 employees that are not affiliated with AMCU in terms of the stop orders.
“When they didn’t come back to us with a response, we escalated the matter to the CCMA on October 16.”
Mphahlele alleges that the CCMA ordered the union to give the mine 48-hour notice to respond to their query, following which they could strike should it continue not to be answered. He says they served Gold One with the notice, which they didn’t commit to. This then led to the current situation.
“We learned on Monday morning from management that the workers are carrying out a hostage situation,” he said.
“They wanted us to go underground without saying anything to the miners and bring them to the surface with the promise that they would sit down with us.”
Mphahlele says he serves the best interests of the miners.
“We know very well that we cannot resolve the situation if we do not have anything tangible that we can communicate with those workers underground,” he said.
“The mine should recognise AMCU as a union the majority has joined as per the miners’ demands.
“It was a concerted effort by nightshift workers to say that on Monday morning we will not be going out of the mine until AMCU is recognised by management.”
Gold One Mine labelled the situation as a hostage citing that they are dealing with it.
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