NUM is gatvol with AMCU President Joseph Mathunjwa’s public posture, disrespecting NUM’s integrity
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) demands an immediate public retraction of an immature public statements that undermines the union’s integrity.
At the so-called “press briefing” earlier today Joseph Mathunjwa deliberately and opportunistically insulted the integrity of thousands of NUM members so that he can gain a cheaper and undeserved popularity. He deliberately went astray and labelled NUM as a union “no longer representing the plight of the working class”. He further insulted the NUM by saying “They have joined in eating the fruits of black labour with white monopolists”.
Violence and killings:
The NUM is so gatvol with Mathunjwa as he continues to incite and perpetuate violence amongst poor workers. NUM wants to directly put a blame to Mathunjwa on the continued violence at Sibanye's various operations where several of our members were brutally killed, and others had their houses and cars burnt down. Mathunjwa is misleading mineworkers, making them to believe there is unions’ rivalry. The NUM has repeatedly stated that Amcu has the right to go on strike, but our main concern is that they are intimidating other workers who have a right to go to work and right to live as stipulated in the country’s Constitution. This is absolutely uncalled for. Poor workers are being made to fight each other instead of fighting the real enemy, which is the employer. Instead of addressing workers’ real challenges at workplaces, Mathunjwa continues to spread lies about the NUM. Whenever he took podium, he won’t finishes his speeches without insulting the NUM.
Retrenchments of 6000 workers at Sibanye:
The NUM is on record to say it is ready to fight retrenchments at Sibanye-Stillwater. It is our duty to fight against retrenchments, should we be given the official notice that they intend to retrench workers, we will sit around the table and tell them why it’s not right to retrench these people.
On membership verification at Sibanye:
As the NUM, Solidarity and UASA, we are the majority unions now at Sibanye Stillwater Gold Operations. Now and then, Amcu is avoiding the membership verification process as per the judgement of the Labour Court on the 13th December 2018. The Judge ruled that the CCMA must lead the verification process where all the unions should be present to determine as to which union is the majority at Sibanye Stillwater Gold Operations. Again on the 16th January 2019, when the CCMA was about to start the verification process, again AMCU avoided the process by applying for leave to appeal against the very same process of verification. Still today, Amcu is claiming to be the majority union.
Mathunjwa’s lies:
Instead of addressing challenges that his undemocratic union is facing, Mathunjwa continues to incompetently incite violence within the mining industry.
The NUM wants to put matters clear. It is a pathological lie that Mathunjwa alleges that NUM went to sign wage agreement in the middle of the night and claiming that AMCU forced Sibanye Stillwater to where the agreement is. The fact of the matter is that AMCU left the wage negotiations at the very early stages when the offers were still far too low than what we have signed for now.
Allegations against Mathunjwa at Impala and Lonmin platinum mines:
We are very disturbed by allegations against Joseph Mathunjwa that at Impala and Lonmin platinum mines, he fraudulently took workers’ pension funds that were negotiated by the NUM , put those monies as increases to the workers’ salaries. This is one of the un-investigated fraudulent activities committed by Joseph Mathunjwa. We call on the independent institution such as the Financial Services Board to thoroughly investigate this fraudulent activity.
AMCU’s legitimacy:
Since AMCU was founded, the union never went into any democratically arranged elective conference. We therefore call on the Department of Labour to come out and investigate these illegitimacy of AMCU and its leadership. To us as the NUM, AMCU is Mathunjwa’s money making scheme or company.
We also call upon the Ministers of Police and Justice to investigate the sponsored syndicates that are currently perpetuating killings and violence in the mining industriy. As the leadership of the NUM, we have appealed before to the Police Minister Bheki Cele to investigate the killings but ever since, the Minister never responded to our request.
As the NUM we have good stories to tell:
Firstly, we introduced pension and provident funds when it was not fashionable to do that to the African mineworkers. We dealt with job reservations, and we pushed the mining industry to recognise mineworkers for promotions. We send mineworkers to Cuba to study various skills before dawn of democracy in 1994, we participated in the formulation of the mining charter in which we demanded women to be hired and promoted in the mining industry. We also introduced Employees Share Ownership Schemes (Esops), we spearheaded the formulation of mine health and safety Act and we introduced Adult Basic Education and Training programmes for mineworkers without formal education when entering the mining industry.
“We want Joseph Mathunjwa to quote one thing as a contribution to transformation in the mining industry”, said NUM President Joseph Montisetse.
Statement issued by NUM President Joseph Montisetse, 19 February 2019
