Strike looms at BCL Mine

CALISTUS KOLANTSHO
Correspondent | Friday May 17, 2013 00:00

 

He said that meanwhile, the miners have decided to boycott BCL celebrations of four million fatality-free shifts to be held next Tuesday because of lack of progress in salary negotiations. Malele has accused BCL Mine of bad faith in the negotiations saying that the company is inflexible. He said BCL is dragging its feet and has refused to budge on the four percent increment it offered when the negotiations started.

After seven days of negotiations an increase for employees in the bargaining group, he said the company was not willing to give in though the union had offered concessions. 'According to the information that we have, BCL performed well last year and we expected them to be giving our members more than the four percent that they are suggesting. They are forgetting that such an amount is nothing to someone who gets paid P1, 500 per month. At least they should be offering them an inflation rate,' Malele stated.

He said the employees have declined the four percent offer. After a deadlock, the dispute was taken to the labour office, but still no agreement was reached. Malele said that at the labour office, the BCL negotiation team was arrogant. He said the union is not happy about the composition of the BCL negotiation team. He said their best option if everything fails is to call a strike under Section 37 of the Industrial Act and this will depend on the findings of the mediator.

He pointed out that the gap between salaries for people in senior management and those in the lower positions is huge. He stated that it seemed the company did not care about the welfare of the employees because it knows that if they quit, it can easily hire new people.BCL public relations and marketing manager, James Molosankwe has said that negotiations are still on-going, hence the company is not in a position to make any comment on the matter.

He explained that speaking about the process would be against the spirit of negotiations and agreements they have with the union.