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29 May, 2008
The ICEM, a 20-million-member Global Union Federation covering trade unions in the Mining Sector, welcomes the settlement reached today between the Mineworkers’ Union of Namibia (MUN) and Skorpion Zinc, a wholly owned subsidiary of London-based Anglo American PLC.
The two parties came to terms today in Windhoek in mediation successfully completed by the head of Namibia’s Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare’s Labour Commission, Bro-Mathew Shinguadja.
The settlement ends a lockout by Skorpion management that started 23 May at the mining and smelting operation in the country’s southern Karas Region. It also resolves the central issue behind that lockout – the company’s insistence that the MUN drop its claim to overtime pay in a to move to continuous shift operations, daily work shifts of 12 hours, with seven days on and then seven days off.
MUN will support Skorpion’s application to the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare for a labour code exemption, which, if granted, will allow the longer work shifts. But the issue of overtime pay was resolved by the company agreeing to comply with a pending court case brought by the MUN regarding overtime pay for work performed beyond nine hours per day.
“We believed throughout that Skorpion must honour Namibian labour code regarding payment of overtime for additional work,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, “and we shared that belief with mining unions across the world. We commend the MUN, Skorpion, and Anglo American for reaching this agreement, and thank the many trade unions around the world who promptly responded to our call.
“We now ask miners and Skorpion management at this important Namibian enterprise to seek reconciliation and move forward from what has been a bitter labour dispute.”
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda
Skorpion agreed to lift the lockout immediately, with miners returning to work on Monday, 2 June. The agreement will be jointly presented to the 600 miners on Monday by MUN local branch leaders and Skorpion management.
The one-year labour agreement will be backdated to 1 April 2008, and contains a 12% pay increase for miners.
The ICEM drew global attention to the dispute when Skorpion reversed terms of a near settlement on 19 May, an agreement then that would have ended an 11-day strike by miners. The next day, MUN suspended the strike but three days later – on 23 May – Skorpion management imposed its lockout, seeking a waiver on all overtime pay.
For further information, contact: Dick Blin, ICEM Information Officer, +41 22 304 1842, +41 79 734 8994 (mobile), or [email protected]