Galane back pedals on job cuts
Chakalisa Dube | Tuesday July 15, 2014 12:22
The Botswana Mine Workers Union (BMWU) secretary general Bob Malele told Mmegi that employees who were to be affected by the retrenchments will be absorbed into other structures within the mine.
Approximately 12 employees in various departments were to lose jobs as part of the mine’s restructuring exercise.
“The mine agreed last week at our meeting with them to absorb employees who were to be retrenched.
“It is unfortunate that some employees voluntarily chose to leave the mine upon hearing about the proposed retrenchments before a final decision was made,” said Malele yesterday.
“We hope that the mine officials will keep its promise on absorbing the workers.
“We will be meeting them in the coming days to see how the employees have been distributed across the mine’s new structure,” he added.
Malele added that the mine agreed at last week’s meeting to increase the workers’ salaries by six percent.
“The increment is effective from the first of April this year,” he said.
The mine management has said that it will not respond to any inquiries about the retrenchments before any final decision is made.
They maintained that it is retrenching employees in a bid to improve its profitability while the union insisted that as the mine goes into underground mining, it will require a lot of labour and that it would not be reasonable to shed staff.
Galane Gold is a 100% subsidiary of Mupane Gold Mine, a Toronto Stock Exchange listed company.
Early last year Galane Gold retrenched 83 employees mainly in the Mining and Geology department in a bid to improve the profitability of the mine.
Initially the union protested the retrenchments and even threatened court action but later gave in.