BMWU, BCL mine declare a dispute
Chakalisa Dube | Thursday January 28, 2016 16:11
Yesterday BMWU president, Jack Tlhagale, told Mmegi that the union has learnt that the mine has changed the salary payments dates of all employees to the last day of the month for the duration of 2016.
He said the union learnt about the salary dates change in a meeting with the mine management on Monday afternoon.
“The mine did not consult us when it changed the payment dates but we represent the employees. It is unethical for the mine to change salary pay days without consulting the union,” said Tlhagale.
“As a result we have declared a dispute. Usually when a dispute is declared either by the union or the mine, both parties have to meet within 10 days to try to iron out the differences. I am hopeful that we will meet in the next 10 days to iron out our differences.”
Tlhagale said the change in salary payment dates has inconvenienced employees because they have loans and other financial obligations they have to meet on dates they agreed with their creditors.
The initial payment date for BCL salaries was between 18 and 25 of every month according to Tlhagale.
The president also said that at the meeting both the mine and the union agreed to meet on a regular basis to address issues affecting employees.
“You will realise that we (BMWU) have often complained that our relationship with the mine was sour. Platforms such as the Joint Negotiation Committee (JNC) meeting and Consultative Committee (CC) meeting were not functioning. We (BCL and BMWU) have resolved to meet more often to discuss issues affecting employees,” said Tlhagale.
Tlhagale said the JNC meeting will be convened quarterly while the first CC meeting will take place on February 1.
He added that on February 3 the union will meet the BCL management to discuss the performance of the mine.
“We could have discussed issues surrounding the business performance of the mine but the mine management indicated that it is not ready. They said they did not want to give us hypothetical figures about the mine performance which we understood,” he said.
BCL spokesperson, James Molosankwe, said the mine cannot comment on issues concerning the meeting between the union and the mine. “Thank you for the enquiry.
We note the issues you have raised on our engagement with the union and have no comment on all of them,” Molosankwe said in a written response.