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14 December, 2009
With a negotiated settlement between ICEM-affiliated Ghana Mine Workers’ Union (GMWU) and AngloGold Ashanti occurring early this month, negotiations in the gold mining sector of Ghana came to a successful conclusion.
Earlier, the country’s labour commission issued a mediated settlement between GMWU and 2,100 miners of Goldfields, while Ghana’s third major gold producer, US-based Newmont Mining, reached satisfactory terms with the union in October.
Three-year collective agreements for some 10,000 miners, retroactive to 1 July 2009, are now in place in Ghana, ending the threat of more strikes and labour discord that marked labour relations in the country’s gold sector in third quarter 2009. (See InBrief No. 140 here.)
At AngloGold where 5,000 staff are employed at three mines, GMWU agreed to a 12% increase in 2009, and 10% salary adjustments in both 2010 and 2011. The union also won improvements in rent allowances pertaining to on-site housing, and won guarantees to review the union-management Provident Fund scheme and to align it more closely with the National Pension scheme.
The GMWU has worked to enhance efficiencies and lower operating costs at AngloGold’s Obuasi and Iduapriem mines, and that work will continue under terms of the new agreement. The Johannesburg-based mining house, the world’s third largest gold producer, said the cost of gold production at Obuasi has decreased by US$150 per once to US$671 per once in third quarter 2009, and that cost is expected to be go even lower in the next three years with cooperation from GMWU.
GMWU General Secretary Prince William Ankrah called the new accord “historic,” stating it “places the human equation at the centre of corporate thinking.”
Ankrah also said the issue of pay disparity between expatriate workers and Ghana miners will continue to be a point of discussion with AngloGold Ashanti.
At Goldfields, a government arbitration panel determined that a 13.5% increase be granted to miners. The agreement with Newmont was reached with less discord, primarily because the company did not attempt to link the shrinking US dollar to salary adjustments. Pay talks for miners at Newmont will be again be addresses in the first half of 2010.
With 2009 salary negotiations now complete with the major mining houses, GMWU will now turn attention to signing new accords with smaller companies and mining contractors.