JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Trade union Solidarity on Wednesday said it had been in discussions with the management of mining company Assmang, in Machadodorp, Mpumalanga, in an attempt to find alternatives to the retrenchment of as many as 60% of its employees.
Solidarity said Assmang had, this month, sent the union a Section 189 notice indicating that 220 employees could possibly be retrenched, in light of the company’s poor financial performance in recent years.
“In the past, the company has scaled down its ferrochrome production significantly due to the oversupply of this metal in the market. Although the company has also begun producing ferromanganese at its Machadodorp plant, production of this metal at this plant is not profitable at the moment either,” Solidarity metal industry organiser Cornelius van Leeuwen stated.
The union noted that it had discussed several possible solutions with the company, in the hope that Assmang would be able to turn around its financial performance in a way other than through retrenchments.
“Various options are currently being considered, although there isn’t clarity at this stage about what steps would eventually be taken,” Van Leeuwen said.
He added that, should the planned retrenchments occur, it would cause irreparable damage to the Machadodorp community, as a large percentage of the town’s residents were employed at the plant.
“We will do everything in our power to limit the impact of this process on our members and on the entire Machadodorp community,” Van Leeuwen concluded.
Mining Weekly Online was still awaiting comment from Assmang.