Anglo American Platinum confirms that its Rustenburg, Union and Amandelbult employees have accepted the terms of the Company’s offer and have returned to work this morning. Management has put in place a reintegration programme, which will include Safe-Start training and medical examinations. As these operations have been idle for two months it is important to ensure that activities are carried out to ensure that working places are made safe. In the interests of the safety and health of our employees, these activities must be carried out before employees can be allowed to begin operations. Once operations have started safely, production ramp up will begin. It is therefore anticipated that there will be no production from these operations for the coming week.
The offer, which will be applied to all employees in the bargaining unit and will benefit approximately 48 000 employees, included the following elements:
- the reinstatement of all the dismissed Rustenburg employees;
- a once off allowance of R4500 (pre-tax) payable in two tranches: the first payment of R2000 hardship allowance to be paid two days after employees have returned to work; and the second payment of R2500 being a safe start-up allowance to be paid two weeks after employees have returned to work and have commenced actual work;
- a monthly allowance of R400 (pre-tax) which will be added to base salaries; and
- an undertaking by management to re-open wage negotiations early, recognising that any agreements reached would be implemented in July 2013 in order to maintain the wage negotiation cycle.
The illegal strike action began in mid-September and has had a significant financial impact on the company. To date, the company has lost 191 359 ounces of platinum production which equates to R3.4 billion of lost revenue. Anglo American Platinum has repeatedly stated that the Rustenburg operations were under considerable economic pressure and the strike action was exacerbating that pressure and affecting the viability of these operations.
Chris Griffith, CEO of Anglo American Platinum, said: “We are very pleased to welcome our employees back to work and will work swiftly to ensure that real work and safe production begin as quickly as possible. We would like to acknowledge the contribution and support of all our stakeholders who worked tirelessly with us to enable the return to work of our employees. We are saddened that two of our colleagues are not here to mark this day with us. We recognise that we will need to spend the time rebuilding relationships with our employees as we continue building a sustainable company for all our stakeholders”.
Further updates will be provided as appropriate.