The Chamber of Mines together with the NUM, Solidarity and UASA, have signed an agreement to give effect to clause 11 of the 2011- 2013 Chamber Gold Wage Agreement. The agreement provides that:
• Category 3 employees will all be placed in the higher Category 4, which will now be the entry level for the companies;
• The salaries of the Category 4 to 8 em-ployees will be raised by between 1.5% and 2%;
• A new operator level for Loader, Loco-motive, Winch and Water Jet Operators will be created within Category 4 and their basic rates will be adjusted by be-tween R250 and R400 per month; and
• The Rock Drill Operators will either have their basic rates adjusted by R500 or will receive an allowance of R400.

All of these adjustments are in addi-tion to the salary increases that took effect July 1, 2012, and which ranged from 8.5% to 10%.

“Stability in the gold mining industry has been achieved at many of the opera-tions and there are hopes that this trend will continue. The safe resumption of normal mining operations is now the top priority,” said Dr. Elize Strydom, senior executive of employment relations at the Chamber of Mines.

She also indicated that “the unpro-tected industrial action has had a nega-tive impact on the gold mining industry, the country’s economy, and on the employees themselves who have forfeited millions of Rands in lost earnings.”

While many miners have returned to work, the news for Amplats is not so good. The company recently reported it had entered into discussions with its “recog-nized unions” (NUM, NUMSA, UASA) to explore options to facilitate the return to work of the Union and Amandelbult mine employees who are engaged in illegal strike action. The status of the 12,000 dismissed Rustenburg employees also formed part of the discussions.

At a meeting held October 26, all par-ties expressed commitment for a return to work. The company made an offer to facilitate a return to work of all striking employees by no later than October 30, 2012. The offer included the reinstate-ment of the dismissed Rustenburg employees. Employees could return to work on the same terms and conditions of employment as applied before the ille-gal industrial action commenced and would receive a final written disciplinary warning.

On October, 30, however, protesters set fire to a power station at the Rustenburg operations and blocked entrances. Police fired tear gas and rub-ber bullets at about 1,000 protesters. Amplats is the last major mining compa-ny unable to bring production on line due to labor unrest.