JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Mining firm Sibanye-Stillwater said on Monday the United Association of South Africa (UASA) union has accepted its wage offer, meaning UASA members will no longer be locked out of the workplace.
Sibanye has been in talks with unions over wages at its South African gold operations, and implemented a lockout last Thursday after receiving strike notice from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) earlier in the week.
Members of the Solidarity union, which accepted Sibanye’s wage offer last week, will no longer be locked out of the workplace either, Sibanye said on Monday. Solidarity had said it would challenge the company’s move to lock out its members.
Sibanye CEO Neal Froneman said the company is “hopeful” that both the NUM and AMCU will soon accept the offer too.
Under Sibanye’s final offer – the sixth since talks began – miners, artisans and officials would receive a 5% pay increase each year and “unskilled and semi-skilled” employees would be given an annual increase of 800 rand ($51.72) a month each year between 2022 and 2024.
(Reporting by Helen Reid; Editing by Promit Mukherjee)
