The HR departments have been busy at Gold One and Implats in the wake of the underground sit-ins at their operations late last year, and the dust has yet to settle. 

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said Gold One had dismissed 445 employees over the lengthy sit-ins in October and December, which the union and company both described as “hostage situations”. The NUM claims that many of its members were wrongfully fired as they were coerced into remaining underground.

“More than 100 NUM members have said they will appeal their dismissals and they want NUM to represent them. We are disappointed that some of the workers who were dismissed were in a hostage situation,” NUM spokesperson Livhuwani Mammburu told Daily Maverick.

More than 100 other workers at the mine could be dismissed this week for allegedly taking part in an unprotected strike at the surface while the underground sit-ins were unfolding, Mammburu added. 

Workers who down tools without going through the legal process required before a strike is called can be fired. This is why such stoppages are referred to as “unprotected” or “wildcat” strikes.

Gold One officials could not be reached for comment.

The dramas at Gold One — which the NUM accused its rival the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) of stoking — signalled a possible end to the honeymoon between the two unions, who had seemed, on the surface, to have patched things up in recent years after a decade of hostility. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: Gold One mine ‘hostage’ drama signals possible end of NUM-Amcu honeymoon

One flashpoint was the NUM’s closed shop agreement — which excludes minority unions from bargaining — at Gold One. The union terminated that agreement as of 14 December 2023 in a bid to douse the unrest, but the wave of dismissals could stoke the embers.

Read more in Daily Maverick: NUM terminates closed-shop agreement at East Rand’s Gold One as violence continues 

Implats, meanwhile, has temporarily rescinded its firing of 38 employees identified as the instigators in a wildcat sit-in at its Rasimone mine in North West to allow them to plead their case.

“We fired them, and then there were meetings between us and the union and we agreed for them to provide mitigation. We have uplifted the suspensions so they can make presentations. They are not suspended, so they can come back to work,” Implats spokesperson Johan Theron told Daily Maverick. 

Nothing is set in stone and the employees could still be sacked. But Implats is perhaps mindful of its dismissal in 2012 of thousands of miners who engaged in a wildcat strike led by rock-drill operators, a move that stirred more unrest in the shafts at a time when Amcu was dislodging the NUM as the dominant union on the Platinum Belt. 

Theron said that as of early this week, employee attendance at the affected shafts was only at 60% compared with 100% for its other operations, which suggests lingering resentment. However, he said Implats was confident that the shafts would be fully staffed before the end of the week. 

The NUM also has a closed shop agreement at Rasimone, one of the assets Implats acquired in its takeover last year of Royal Bafokeng Platinum (RBPlat). But the underground protest there just before Christmas stemmed from frankly silly things like fictional grievances over access to savings and pension funds and was apparently ginned up by NUM members who had failed to secure leadership posts.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Implats wildcat underground strike ends in time for payday — issues unresolved 

The two strikes at Gold One and the Implats incident were among at least five underground wildcat protests that erupted late last year in South Africa’s mining industry, shattering a period of relative labour calm at the rockface. 

It remains a space to watch closely. DM