BMWU, BCL in wage negotiations standoff
Onalenna Kelebeile | Wednesday September 9, 2015 16:17
Last September, the two parties agreed to form a representative joint task team that would develop terms of reference and a project plan for the review of the mine’s pay structure. The review was due out last December.
BCL Mine also committed itself to gradually adjusting the annual bonus from the current five percent to 8.33 percent of employees’ annual basic salary over a period of three years from the date of agreement.
However, Mmegi has established that the task team’s progress has floundered as the union and management representative could not agree on the terms of reference and the project plan, needed before the pay review.
This year, workers are asking for a 10 percent adjustment and the introduction of an underground allowance.
BMWU spokesperson, Joseph Tsimako said the BMWU had preferred benchmarking with other mines that do business with BCL, while management on the other hand preferred a survey on the pay structure.
“Our task team informed us that they failed to agree on the terms of reference and the project plan. These could have been out by now,” he explained in an interview on Monday.
“We want the pay structure review including the whole pay system and we need to look into a lot of issues regarding the pay structure. That is why we prefer benchmarking.
“So we have not agreed up to now. We have not finalised the talks on this year’s salary increase and we believe that what is going on is just a delay tactic by the mine management to ensure that the year ends without any increase.”
The union is pushing for the pay structure review, as it believes annual adjustments are not capable of lifting workers to financial stability.
“What the management is doing is to divert the union’s focus from demanding the pay structure review, which is our priority.
“Management has indicated that it is constrained by unfavourable economic situations as the commodities are not doing well in the market and hence they cannot implement some agreements,” he said.
He said the BMWU demands that mine management implement the wage agreement made last year before this year’s adjustments can be finalised.
“We reached agreements last year regarding upgrading of mine houses, bonuses and salary structure review.
When the negotiation talks started this year we demanded an update on these items alongside our demand for a 10 percent increase and an underground allowance,” he said.
For his part, the BCL Mine’s public relations and marketing manager, James Molosankwe confirmed that the task team could not agree on the terms of reference and matters had stalled.
“Subsequent to the signing of the agreement, parties agreed to set up a task team to help review the BCL salary structure and formalise recommendations for consideration,” he said.
“The task team could not agree on the terms of reference, which is a critical step in the process and the matter was referred back to the Joint Negotiations Council for guidance and resolution.
“The parties have since agreed to refer the matter for expert advice. “We, however, confirm that negotiations on other conditions of service are continuing.”