WORKERS at Lonmin will have little to celebrate during the festive season because the retrenchment axe will hang over their heads.
This comes after the platinum mine informed organised labour of plans to retrench workers early next year.
"The management envisages ... that the proposed retrenchment is to be implemented during early 2013," the company said in a letter to National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) general secretary Frans Baleni.
"The management has considered continuing its business operation by introducing cost cutting measures and scaling down on capital expenditure," the letter said.
The company said it had considered retaining the status quo and placing a moratorium on recruitment, but this did not work out.
"The natural attrition of employees and a moratorium on recruitment were considered insufficient to address the impact the factors referred to above are having on the business of Lonmin," the letter continued.
The company said "all employees in the Patterson job grades F, E, D and C would be affected". These grades refer to staff at management level.
The retrenchment plan comes after the company was hit by the most violent illegal strike post-1994. The strike resulted in 46 deaths and 1100000 ounces of platinum production were lost.
In the letter Lonmin proposed to pay workers a severance package equivalent to two week's wages for each completed year of continuous employment.
Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union spokesman (Amcu) Jeff Mphahlele said the organisation had yet to take a position on the matter.
NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said by retrenching employees in management levels, the company was paving the way to lay off workers below this level.
"We suspect that Lonmin wants to retrench workers who are not in management," Seshoka said. "The company first wants to create an environment in which there will be little room for us to raise questions about the retrenchment of general workers. When they retrench general workers we would not be able to ask why management was not being retrenched.
"We are disappointed by this. We thought that by giving workers a huge wage increase Lonmin was saying the company would not embark on any retrenchments any time soon."
Lonmin failed to respond to questions raised by Sowetan .
Retrenchments loom at Lonmin
WORKERS at Lonmin will have little to celebrate during the festive season because the retrenchment axe will hang over their heads.
This comes after the platinum mine informed organised labour of plans to retrench workers early next year.
"The management envisages ... that the proposed retrenchment is to be implemented during early 2013," the company said in a letter to National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) general secretary Frans Baleni.
"The management has considered continuing its business operation by introducing cost cutting measures and scaling down on capital expenditure," the letter said.
The company said it had considered retaining the status quo and placing a moratorium on recruitment, but this did not work out.
"The natural attrition of employees and a moratorium on recruitment were considered insufficient to address the impact the factors referred to above are having on the business of Lonmin," the letter continued.
The company said "all employees in the Patterson job grades F, E, D and C would be affected". These grades refer to staff at management level.
The retrenchment plan comes after the company was hit by the most violent illegal strike post-1994. The strike resulted in 46 deaths and 1100000 ounces of platinum production were lost.
In the letter Lonmin proposed to pay workers a severance package equivalent to two week's wages for each completed year of continuous employment.
Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union spokesman (Amcu) Jeff Mphahlele said the organisation had yet to take a position on the matter.
NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said by retrenching employees in management levels, the company was paving the way to lay off workers below this level.
"We suspect that Lonmin wants to retrench workers who are not in management," Seshoka said. "The company first wants to create an environment in which there will be little room for us to raise questions about the retrenchment of general workers. When they retrench general workers we would not be able to ask why management was not being retrenched.
"We are disappointed by this. We thought that by giving workers a huge wage increase Lonmin was saying the company would not embark on any retrenchments any time soon."
Lonmin failed to respond to questions raised by Sowetan .
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