Remaining Aurora workers go on strike

The last remaining 100 workers or so have gone on strike at cash-strapped miner, Aurora’s Grootvlei Mine in Springs. Trade union Solidarity spokesman, Jaco Kleynhans, said workers responsible for carrying out care and maintenance at the mine had gone on a full-blown strike from today. “The workers are angry because they have not been paid their salaries for February,” Mr Kleynhans said.

Aurora Empowerment Systems bought the mine from Pamodzi Liquidators last year but they company has been unable to pay an owed amount of R207m to Pamodzi for months. There was a strike in April at Aurora’s mines over unpaid wages for January, February and March. The company has also failed to make unemployment insurance fund payments for its staff.

Solidarity has had notified Aurora’s management of the employee’s dissatisfaction in writing last week, but has not received any response from them yet. The 100-or-so remaining workers had stayed behind to carry out maintenance work after other 2900-odd workers left the company to work elsewhere.

General secretary of Solidarity, Gideon Du Plessis, said the workers were not being insured by Aurora. He said they worked under extremely dangerous circumstances and, in terms, of the Compensation for Occasional Injuries and Diseases Act of 1993, the mine was required to take out the necessary insurance for its employees. Du Plessis said the strike could have a negative impact on the environment and the mine itself. "If the pumping out of contaminated mine water is not resumed this week, the Grootvlei Mine as an asset could be destroyed as a whole,” he said.

Aurora spokesman Thulani Ngubane said only one worker had incited the others to strike. He said other workers would be employed to take care of the maintenance of the mine because it was such a valuable asset. "The Grootvlei mine is a national asset. So they must understand that if they strike they could cause over 3,000 jobs to be lost in the future," he said. Aurora has said it wants to list on the JSE by the end of August so that it can “open a channel for funding from Swiss investment firm, GEMS”.

Source: Business Day