Vol. 77/No. 37      October 21, 2013

The world’s largest platinum producer, Amplats originally said it would cut 14,000 jobs, but revised its plans after workers and the government objected.

“We are for zero retrenchment,” Gaddafi Mdoda, an underground miner and branch secretary of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) at one of the four shafts the company wants to close, said in a phone interview from Rustenburg Oct. 5.

Amplats claims that the shafts it will close are unprofitable and that it is suffering from “overcapacity.” The price of platinum on the world market is $1,375 an ounce, double what it was in 2004, but below its peak of $2,250 in 2008. The company is planning to cut jobs through a combination of voluntary severance, early retirement, attrition and layoffs.

“We are not economists,” Mdoda said. “But we do know that Amplats has been producing platinum here for 30 years, making millions and millions in profits. And they are still producing as much as they can. The workers should not be the ones to be punished if the company has a problem.”

Mdoda was a leader of the two-month strike by 28,000 workers at Amplats for higher wages and better working conditions last year that was part of a strike wave by more than 100,000 platinum, gold and other miners. The government-allied National Union of Mineworkers opposed the strikes. Since then AMCU has replaced the NUM as the majority union throughout South Africa’s platinum belt.

“The mines they are shutting down are where the strongest leadership came from during the 2012 strike,” Mdoda said. “If they shut them down, the militants will be dispersed.”

AMCU President Joseph Mathunjwa said the union is pressing Amplats to increase the number of workers eligible for severance and to lay off contract workers ahead of those it directly employs, according to South Africa’s City Press.