Focus on labour in platinum and car sectors
BY KARL GERNETZKY: 06 JANUARY 2016, 05:54
THE struggling platinum industry will go into wage negotiations this year, while multiyear agreements in the car sector are due to be renegotiated.
Protracted motor industry negotiations — which three years ago prompted strong words from BMW, one of several major assemblers in SA — are coming soon after approval of the latest industry support plan, due to start in 2020.
BMW is to invest more than R6bn in its South African subsidiary to build the next-generation X3 sports utility vehicle.
The building of the vehicle will replace the manufacturing of the 3-series sedan, which the car maker has been assembling at the company’s Rosslyn plant near Pretoria since 1983.
However, it is to the platinum industry that much attention will be paid.
Unlike gold producers, who negotiate with unions as one group, platinum miners face the unions individually in wage talks.
The platinum price has taken a beating on international stock markets as a result of cooling Chinese demand, and the pain is expected to continue this year.
The wage agreement with producers Lonmin, Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) and Impala Platinum, at which the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) is the largest union, ends in June.
Northam Platinum, Royal Bafokeng Platinum and Aquarius Platinum are also expected to enter into wage negotiations with Amcu, Solidarity and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) this year.
Amplats shares shed two-thirds of their value on the JSE last year and Lonmin shares lost 99% of their value on the exchange.
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