Zuko Komisa
The hostage crisis at Gold One Mine has ended.
Three days after the incident, which was sparked by a dispute over union registration, began, all 543 mineworkers who had been forced underground by their colleagues emerged on Wednesday, ending the hostage crisis at gold miner Gold One.
Point of View with Phemelo Motene spoke to Mining Expert, David van Wyk.
He spoke about the situation at Gold One Mine after more than 100 miners who had been underground for nearly three days amid a standoff between rival labour unions returned to the surface.
Listen to the full conversation here:
Also Read: WATCH: Tyla sings ‘Water’ on her US television debut on the Jimmy Fallon show
Wage discussion excluding AMCU
He spoke about how Amcu wants to be recognized at the mine where NUM is currently the only union with organizing rights and shared alternative avenues the mining union AMCU could have taken to voice their concerns.
“I think AMCU didn’t need to go to court if the management was honest and open and called the leadership and said let’s talk about it. It seems as if as a significant union, even the majority union should have been involved in the wage discussions in January which excluded AMCU where agreements were made with NUM and made without AMCU, agreements were made with NUM, NUMSA, and Solidarity. This created tensions.” said van Wyk.
Pay discrepancies
He also outlined some of the concerns the workers of the mine raised regarding their payslips.
The workers were complaining about their payslips not reflecting the amounts that were banked into their accounts. The nett salaries that got into their accounts according to workers were actually different to what was indicated on their payslips.” said van Wyk.
