The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Matlosana Region has rejected the issuing by Village Main Reef (VMR) of Section 189 notices, setting out the proposed retrenchment of 6 309 mineworkers from the Tau Lekoa mine, the Kopanang mine and the West Gold plant.

Media reports earlier this week suggested that VMR would be closing down its operations as a result of the impact of Covid-19 on its operations.

The NUM on April 23 said the organisation and its members had not been consulted when the company had issued Section 197 notices.

Section 197 of the Labour Relations Act was enacted to change the common law position, with the effect that an automatic transfer of contracts of employment from the transferring employer (previous employer) to the acquiring employer (new employer) now takes place in the event that the whole or part of any business, trade, undertaking or service is transferred from the previous employer to the new employer as a going concern.

The section, therefore, makes provision for an exception to the principle that the contract of employment may not be transferred without the consent of the employees, and it has the dual purpose of both facilitating transfers of businesses, and protecting employees’ interest in job security.

For a transaction to fall within the scope of Section 197, the following three elements must simultaneously be present: a transfer of an entity by one employer to another; the transferred entity must be the whole or a part of a business; and the business must be transferred as a going concern.

“This inhumane brutality happens at the time when the country is fighting the spread of Covid-19 and the government has issued numerous calls to companies to do all within their power to save jobs.

"The NUM Matlosana Region rejects the Section 197 and Section 189 notices as issued by VMR. The VMR has also unilaterally, without consulting the unions, issued letters to workers instructing them not to report to work after the lockdown period. The company has also announced the no work, no pay from March 26. As it stands now, all mineworkers on lockdown will not be paid,” the NUM said.