Thursday, January 07, 2016

NUM to March Against De Beers Kimberley Mines
5 January 2016

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Kimberley Mines Branch will embark on a march against De Beers Kimberley Mines on the 14th of January 2016.

The NUM members at Kimberley mines are extremely concerned that the sale of the Kimberley Mines was announced through the media and the NUM structures were never consulted.

On the 16th of September 2014, De Beers Consolidated Mines announced to the media that Kimberley Mines will be looking into the following three options:

Closure of the mine in 2018
Looking at other mining methods to extend the life beyond 2018
selling the mine to a third party which can mine profitably beyond 2018.

The NUM members will be voicing their anger, disappointment and sadness by the manner in which De Beers sold Kimberley Mines to Ekapa Mining &Petra Diamonds without consultation a "deal" in question could see about 600 employees' future hanging in the limbo.

We believe that De Beers has got a hidden agenda since it is only known for its bad legacy of extracting our country's minerals and exploiting our people to the latter. There is nothing to write home about in terms of De Beers Corporate Social Responsibility, beneficiation, providing and facilitating secondary economy, let alone transforming the industry.

The worst and most disdain attitude this company displays is colonisation of our economy by ripping us off our country's wealth that has helped to build the western world leaving us in absolute and grinding poverty.

We further vow to fight to the bitter end in pursuit of our right to claim the money in a form of shares that this company is refusing to pay to the employees. These payments have been due since March 2014.

We will, therefore, demand that De Beers should sojourn the sale of this mine and restart the consultation process which entails amongst others, compliance with Section 197 of the Labour Relations Act as a whole, ensuring the sustainable employment and job security of our members, exhausting other options instead of setting employees up for possible downward variation of the conditions of employment.

The details of the march are as follows:

Date: 14th January 2016
Time: 09h00
Venue: The march to commence at KEMO Hotel Parking and Proceed to Stockdale Street (De Beers Head Quarters)

The memorandum will be handed to both De Beers and Department of Mineral Resources respectively.

The media is welcome to attend and report.

For more information, please contact

Orapeleng Moraladi (Acting NUM Kimberley Regional Co-Ordinator) 078 452 6891/082 530 3208

ADRESS:
7 Rissik Street.
Cnr Frederick,
Johannesburg 2001
Tel: 011 377 2111

Web: www.num.org.za
Twitter: @Num Media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/NUM/100860023402167

- See more at: http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=11247#sthash.2WVJByvH.dpuf

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