The National Union of Mineworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) will on Monday march to the Office of the Presidency at the Union Building to demand drastic intervention to save the country’s ferrochrome smelters!
The union has cautioned that workers in the sector continue to bear the pain of the job loss bloodbath at companies like Glencore, Samancor, and Almar investments.
“By the 31st of December Glencore will have cut 2 000 jobs, Almar Investments has retrenched over 538 workers and Samancor has issued a section 189 notice where it states that it is contemplating retrenching 5 000 workers,” said the union spokesperson, Phakamile Hlubi-Majola.
Hlubi-Majola said that the national Shop Stewards Council of NUMSA, which represents workers in these companies, has resolved that a march must be taken to the office of the presidency as the highest office in the land, so that this matter can be given the priority that it deserves.
“The purpose of the march is to demand the GNU to come up with a bold and aggressive industrial policy.
It should be bold enough to declare a moratorium on retrenchments, and it must come up with a set of package interventions in the form of incentives, which includes banning certain imports of products that are destroying South Africa’s share of the market,” she added.
Among others, the union is demanding a reduction of electricity tariffs as the affected companies claim the cost of electricity accounts for more than 60% of their operational costs.
Meanwhile, in a recent media briefing, the minister of Electricity and Energy. Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, said the government is finalising an electricity package for the sector that surpasses the Negotiated Pricing Agreement framework, provided to other electricity-intensive enterprises.
Ramokgopa highlighted that the framework is part of the government’s policy for selected sectors, to allow them to recover fixed costs, save jobs, while offering price certainty.
