JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – With some 30 000 jobs already coming under threat in South Africa’s mining sector over the past year, trade union Solidarity on Tuesday said it would “pull out all the stops” to prevent further retrenchments.

The union, which presented a retrenchment analysis to the Department of Minerals Resources (DMR) last week, painted a bleak picture of the state of the mining sector, and forced retrenchments could aggravate the situation, Solidarity general secretary Gideon du Plessis said.

Reacting to JSE- and NYSE-listed Sibanye Gold’s announcement on Monday that it would embark on a Section 189A consultation process at its Cooke 4 operation, Du Plessis said the jobs of around 2 500 workers were in jeopardy, but many of the impending retrenchments could be prevented.

Despite collaborative efforts over the last 17 months, Sibanye had not been able to pull the operation out of the red and back to sustainability and faced mounting financial losses and missed production targets.

However, Sibanye had committed to investigating all possible alternatives to prevent forced retrenchments during a “very positive” informal discussion with Solidarity, he said.

“During our discussion with the Sibanye management, it came to our attention that many vacancies exist within the Sibanye group. We will, therefore, encourage our members working at Cooke 4 to immediately accept any transfers to another Sibanye mine or shaft, thereby ensuring job security,” Du Plessis said.

Further, he explained that Sibanye needed to focus on the long term, as labour unrest could emerge from an already tense situation.

“We are appealing to all parties involved to participate constructively in the consultation process. The state of labour relations could have a very real impact on the future of South Africa’s credit rating.”