Cosatu backs striking mineworkers 15 -02-07

COSATU backs striking mineworkers

The Congress of South African Trade Unions reaffirms its full support for the strike by 3000 members of the National Union of Mineworkers at the Modikwa Platinum mine, which has now entered its third week.

COSATU is angry that the employers, Anglo Platinum and African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), have issued a 48-hour lockout notice to take effect today. This would mean that all NUM members would be locked out of Modikwa's premises until the union accepted the company's demand for a continuous working week (Conops).

We demand that this lock-out threat be lifted immediately and that the employers engage in genuine negotiations to end the strike. We hope that the meeting at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration on Friday will lead to a mutually satisfactory outcome.

In particular we demand that the company drops its proposal for Conops, which the union is rightly objecting to, on the grounds that it contravenes the Basic Conditions of Employment and Mines Acts.