The practice of union office bearers being paid by an employer is a legacy which will be stopped, senior executive at the Chamber of Mines Vusi Mabena said on Thursday.

"Companies have come together to pay the salaries of union presidents and deputy presidents," he said.

"This was a legacy that we are carrying but this practice will stop soon. The unions have been informed and we expect them to respond; negotiations are ongoing."

Mabena said it started as a method of capacity building to assist the union and to centralise the salaries of the presidents and deputy presidents.

He said the practice had not affected salary negotiations or other negotiations by unions and the chamber.

"No, it hasn't affected the negotiation processes at all. We have had strikes in the past while the office bearers were paid," Mabena said.

Union office bearers being paid by an employer was a "universal practice" and not limited to the National Union of Mineworkers, the union said earlier.

"The practice of union leadership being seconded to the union and being paid by the employer is a universal practice, not a NUM matter or a mining one as the writer wants it to appear," spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka said.

"If a worker is elected to a trade union office, it is the employer that pays his salary while the said worker does work for the union on a full-time basis. There has never been and there is no conflict of interest in these."

Seshoka said all mineworkers were paid by their employers.

He was responding to a report in the Daily Maverick on Thursday that there was a furtive conflict of interest because mining houses were footing the bill for top NUM office bearers' salaries.

According to the report the arrangement started in the late 80s as a means to protect union leaders from corporations, but the Chamber of Mines decided in the interests of good governance and transparency to stop paying the salaries of prominent unionists.

The NUM called the report "baseless" and said the writer distorted what was general practice among unions.

Seshoka said the writer had a "narrow goal of besmirching the name of our good union".

"The NUM is perturbed by the poor levels of journalism displayed by the writer and his crew at Maverick who have continuously displayed the lowest levels of judgment," Seshoka said.