South Deep and NUM reach agreement to end strike action

Johannesburg, 18 December 2018: Gold Fields Limited (Gold Fields) (JSE, NYSE: GFI) is pleased to announced that it has reached agreement with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to officially end the 45-day strike at its South Deep mine in South Africa. Employees have been returning to work since last Thursday (13 December 2018) when the NUM called off the strike, but the formal settlement agreement to end the strike was only signed today after a mass meeting held by the NUM. In terms of the agreement, the retrenchments of 1,082 employees will go ahead, with most of these retrenchments having already been processed. Retrenched employees have been offered portable skills training to assist in their future job searches. To alleviate the financial burden of employees who were on the ‘no-work no-pay’ strike, South Deep has agreed to deduct the lost earnings over four months and to pay all non-management employees an ex-gratia payment of 20% of basic pay should they have returned to work by the 15 December 2018. They can also earn back part of their lost earnings if monthly gold production targets are exceeded in January and February next year. In the interest of the long-term operational and financial sustainability of South Deep, the two parties have also agreed to: • Renegotiate and modernise the collective and other agreements, which govern the working relationship between the two parties. • A facilitated relationship building programme to address the difficult relationship between the NUM branch leadership and management. Gold Fields’ embarked on a business restructuring and Section 189 retrenchment process at South Deep in mid-August 2018 in response to continued high financial losses of around R100m a month. The NUM branch at South Deep commenced its strike action on 2 November 2018 to protest the retrenchments and used violence and intimidation to illegally block access to the mine. This prevented South Deep from starting production, though critical essential services were maintained during the strike. The mine experienced a cash burn of around R6m per day. “With the strike over and our cost base adjusted to the reduced operating footprint and output, we believe that we are well positioned to put South Deep on a sustainable road to recover and significantly reduce our monthly cash losses at the mine,” said Gold Fields CEO Nick Holland. “We now need to put this difficult period behind us and work together to build a sustainable future for our employees, our communities, our shareholders and other stakeholders.” Production is expected to build-up gradually from now on with the mine set to run production during the Christmas/New Year break. In the meantime, the mine is ensuring that all safe start-up operating processes have been completed. “Detailed mine planning is currently under way and once the full impact of the mine planning exercise and restructuring are complete, we expect to provide guidance for 2019 with our 2018 financial results release in February 2019,” Holland said.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mines to gain control of yellow metal assets – aims to reduce fraud

SAMAR announces plans to cover entire life-cycle of all assets MIDRAND, SOUTH AFRICA – 25 May 2017 – The Southern African Movable Asset Register (SAMAR) today announces its plans that will allow mines, contractors, manufacturers, importers, builders, banks, insurers as well as the general public to control title and ownership of all movable assets, including yellow metal and other movable assets used during operations. In Africa, many yellow metal assets are crudely marked and registered to businesses. However, SAMAR creates the most recent reliable record of an asset and yellow metal by updating records in real-time as changes are made by various system participants. This allows businesses to effectively manage and control the financing of assets and yellow metal not on eNaTIS throughout their lifecycle. This greatly reduces fraud, theft, double discounting, or incorrect depiction for value and insurance purposes. Benefits for contractors • The value of movable assets and yello...
Read more

Reconditioning of components with Thermal Spray Coatings

Image
The application of Thermal Spray coatings by South Africa’s leading surface coating specialists, Thermaspray, can lead to an enhancement in performance and an extension of service life of expensive engineering parts and industrial components, leading to substantial reductions in downtime and production costs. Engineering components and parts in production processes are subject to degradation through wear, corrosion, oxidation and cavitation. Thermaspray, Managing Director, Dr. Jan Lourens, points out that as all these degradation processes are active on the surface of components, a suitably selected and correctly applied surface coating like Thermal Spray can effectively re-condition production equipment to ‘as new’. “In fact”, adds Dr. Lourens, “very often, through degradation analyses and the selection of a superior coating, a thermal spray coating makes it possible to provide virtually as good as new a component. Most importantly for the end user, this means substantial cost sav...
Read more

Creativity Saves Lives. Protect your people today, tomorrow and for the future

Image
MEDIA STATEMENT A strong Health and Safety culture improves productivity and assists in creating a safe and great place to work. The health and safety dialogue company ensures labour force, management, community and all stakeholders are aligned in creating and respecting a safe and healthy working environment. Through workshops and visual campaigns, we bring your Health and Safety Policy to life. Legislation is designed to protect human life and to enforce safety standards. However, OHS Acts are often complex and difficult to understand especially in areas with low literacy. It is essential as a business to ensure your labour force truly understand the associated risks within their working environment; culture goes beyond ticking training boxes. Has your organisation considered the importance of promoting a Health and Safety culture? Are you confident your employees are living and working in a safety conscious culture beyond paperwork and legislation? The vision of the health and...
Read more