JSE-listed platinum miner, Impala Platinum, had started an evaluation of its strategy after struggling to ramp up production following a five-month strike at its Rustenburg operations.
The world’s second biggest platinum miner said it would have to embark on an intensive cost management programme in the next couple of months as it had to pay out salary hikes of up to 20 percent.
These hikes are a consequence of the crippling five-month-long strike which cost the company millions in lost production.
“Costs in 2015 are not going to be pretty,” Reuters quoted CEO Terence Goodlace as having told reporters at a presser in Johannesburg.
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The results of the evaluation programme are expected to be out in the next four months. Goodlace was at pains to explain that this review will not lead to job cuts at Rustenburg mines.
Earlier this week, the company’s peer, Lonmin, refuted claims that it plans to retrench about 5700 workers at its Rustenburg mines.
It seems the platinum miners are afraid to kick-start a backlash from the militant Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) by embarking on job cuts.
A union backlash could lead to another round of strikes, which the industry is not ready tackle at this stage after having emerged from a five-month-long crippling strike.
“We are looking at modernising the workplace and will mechanise where we can,” Reuters quoted Goodlace as having said. (VENTURES AFRICA)
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