South Africa: 93 Mozambican miners retrenched by Village Main Reef

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South Africa: 93 Mozambican miners retrenched by Village Main Reef

8:31 CAT | 14 Sep 2020

FILE _ For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Reuters]

South African mining company Village Main Reef has retrenched 93 Mozambican workers as part of a workforce reduction programme, the Mozambican Ministry of Labour and Social Security, which is monitoring the situation, announced this Friday.

The unlisted miner, controlled by China-based parent company Heaven Sent Gold, reportedly first announced the decision to retrench some of its workforce in February of this year.

“The compensation and indemnity process [for the retrenched workers] is ongoing until the end of this month,” João Almeida, the Mozambican Ministry of Labour and Social Security delegate in South Africa, told public broadcaster Radio Mozambique.

João Almeida said that Village Main Reef had laid off a total of 2,000 workers of various nationalities, following losses suffered in recent years as a result of the fall in the price of gold.

Another 6,000 miners are at risk of being laid off, Almeida said.

In August, South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) issued the following statement on the wider matter of retrenchment at Village Main reef:

Press Statement, 31 August 2020

POST-NUM NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING MEDIA STATEMENT

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) held its bi-monthly National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting from 27 to 28 August 2020 at Elijah Barayi Memorial Training Center in Midrand. Among many issues that the NEC deliberated on were the following.

1. (…)

2, Village Main Reef

This is a company that operates some of the former Anglogold operations in the Klerksdorp-Orkney area in the North West Province of South Africa. When the Chinese took over these operations we hoped for the better in terms of employment. Little did we know that we had bigger trouble awaiting us. During the lockdown, this company completely failed to pay workers even a fraction of their salaries. As the mines are allowed to operate at 100%, they have not recalled a single worker leaving more than 4,000 workers in abject poverty. Instead they issued retrenchment notices during the initial lockdown period. When we finally agreed to engage on retrenchments, they changed goalposts and said they are unable to pay retrenchment packages as per the agreement signed at Chamber of Mines more than two years ago. All they want is to pay R22,000 across the board irrespective of the number of years a person has worked and they want to pay that in six monthly instalments. We reject that with the contempt it deserves and call upon the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy to recall their mining license.

3. (…)

Postponed by lockdown

In late April this year; Reuters reported that “Village Main Reef, which had planned a turnaround of its operations that could lead to job cuts, said it had agreed to postpone the retrenchment process until after the nationwide coronavirus lockdown [in South Africa]”.

The unlisted miner, controlled by China-based parent company Heaven Sent Gold, said it met with the mines minister earlier in April and agreed that the process would be halted until after the lockdown.

A week earlier, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), its majority union announced that up to 6,309 workers could lose their jobs at its Tau Lekoa mine, Kopanang mine and West Gold Plant.

Meanwhile, Village Main Reef Chief Executive Officer Jeff Dong siad, cited by Reuters: “We were just starting to see positive signs of improvement in March, when unfortunately, the turnaround strategy was abruptly interrupted by the outbreak of COVID-19 in South Africa and the subsequent Lockdown (and its extension.” .

Figures from the Minerals Council SA, which represents 90% of mining production in South Africa, indicate that the sector contributed 360.9 billion rand (€18.087 billion) to SA domestic product gross in 2019.

About 442,500 miners are employed in South African gold and platinum mines, of whom 20,810 are Mozambicans, the South African Mineral Council told Lusa in August.