Cape Town — What started as a 250-person sit-in strike at the Sibanye-Stillwater mine, has now dwindled to just 31 as the sit-in slowly runs out of steam.
As reported by JacarandaFM, Executive Vice President James Wellsted said most of the miners surfaced overnight.
“The most recent information is that there are about 30 still underground. A lot of them came out overnight, so we are expecting most of them to be out by the end of today. While they were underground, we were trying to get them to come up. So there was quite a bit of communication, most of it through the union representatives following the incident last year at Gold One, where management was held hostage and assaulted by workers sitting underground.” he said.
Wellsted warned of consequences for workers who participated in the illegal strike.
“When they come to the surface, we will make sure that they are fully nourished, give them a medical check-up, and, once they have gone home and rested, we will follow the appropriate procedures for this kind of grievance.
Original reports suggested that operations at the mine was disrupted on Monday morning by employees disputing the proceeds of an employment payment scheme. The protest stems from the disgruntled miners not receiving payments as part of the company’s employee share ownership scheme at the end of May, The Citizen reported.
As per the mining giant, the annual payment will only be due after the Kroondal share agreement has been acquired by Sibanye Rustenburg Platinum Mines, a deal to be concluded before the end of 2024.
Over 100 mineworkers are staging an underground sit-in at Sibanye-Stillwater’s Kroondal mine in Rustenburg over the employee share ownership scheme. AMCU Deputy President Phuthuma Manyathi elaborates.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
