It will be a bleak festive period ahead for Sibanye-Stillwater workers after the diversified metals group said yesterday it plans to retrench roughly 2000 workers as it restructures its South Africa gold operations.
Load shedding, cost pressures and the age of its mines were some of the reasons behind its announcement, Sibanye said.
Sibanye envisaged that the proposed restructuring (of both Beatrix 4 shaft and Kloof 1 plant) might potentially result in the retrenchment of up to 1 959 employees and affect 465 contractors.
“The proposed restructuring could potentially affect employees at Beatrix 4 shaft, those employees who provide support services to the shaft, and Kloof 1 and 2 plants. In addition, employees may be affected in associated companies, including Sibanye Gold Protection Services and Sibanye Gold Academy Proprietary,” Sibanye said.
However, the group would also consider measures to avoid and mitigate possible retrenchments and seek alternatives to the potential cessation or downscaling of operations and associated services.
The initiation of S189 consultations follows numerous unsuccessful attempts by the group to address productivity and other operational issues at the Beatrix 4 shaft, and the depletion of Surface Rock Dump (SRD) mineral reserves at the Kloof 1 plant.
In an interview, Sibanye spokesperson James Wellsted said the mines were nearing the end of life and had been making a loss.
“These mines have all been going for decades now. They’re very mature and reaching the end of their operating lives. So Beatrix itself, which is made up of three different mines, is forecast to reach the end of its life by 2026. The Beatrix 4 shaft, the one we are discussing, was due to be closed imminently, very shortly, it’s been making losses.
“And that is because of the depth and age of the mine and how far the operating areas are from the shaft. But it’s also from Eskom load shedding and inflationary cost pressures that we’ve been experiencing that have also contributed to the losses that we’ve been experiencing there,” he said.
Wellsted said this was not the first time the mine had entered a section 189 process, it also did so in 2017.
“After the consultation with stakeholders. We found alternative ways to keep the mine operating, and we kept it going on a three-month rolling average basis at major operating profits. We keep it open, but now, it’s just become impossible to operate,” he said.
According to Wellsted, Sibanye raised this with unions in the monthly engagements that they had to try and find alternative solutions.
“So far, there has been nothing, so as a result, we’ve been compelled to enter into section 189 consultations,” Wellsted said.
Wellsted said as the mines were getting close to the end of the reserves, they had resources, but these were not economic to mine.
“The problem is, if it’s making ongoing losses, we’ve got to fund those losses from the other mines. We’ve had quite a troubled last couple of years of those operations with various disruptions. So they’ve been making operating losses across operations. And we can’t afford to cross-subsidise this loss-making mine because instead of 2 000 employees, we might be facing 30 000 who may be at risk. We are ensuring that we can preserve jobs at the other operations as well,” he said.
Wellsted said: “I think it’s important to realise this isn’t taken lightly. We were aware of the economic difficulties in that region. And in the country as a whole. We’re aware of unemployment issues. We’ve got to weigh up the risks that this poses of carrying losses at this operation to preserve jobs for a short term might impact on more jobs in the longer term.”
He said Sibanye hoped that the stakeholders would engage honestly and openly with it to try and find some alternatives.
“But unfortunately, this is the last resort that we’ve got,” he said.
Meanwhile, Solidarity and National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said they were worried that their members might have a “black festive season” due to the pending retrenchments.
Solidarity said this development meant that the affected employees faced a bleak Christmas with the uncertainty of whether they would still have a job in 2023.
“However, Sibanye has shown with the previous 189 consultations regarding their Beatrix shafts and after the takeover of the Marikana mines from Lonmin, that they are investigating all alternatives to minimise the number of affected employees, and Solidarity believes that this will once again be the case,” said Gideon du Plessis, general secretary of Solidarity.
The union said it would actively participate in the consultation process with the hope of preventing retrenchments, but otherwise keeping it to a minimum.
The 189-process will be facilitated by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) and a date for the first round of the consultation process has yet to be confirmed, it said.
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