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28 February, 2011
A dispute has arisen in South Africa between ICEM affiliate National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Xstrata Coal over the apparent discharge of 12 HIV-positive miners. The miners were first sacked last fall from their jobs at the Tweefontein collieries in Mpumalanga province, but the NUM interceded on their behalf before the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA) and won reinstatement to their jobs.
But in mid-February, Xstrata Coal South Africa informed the NUM that it would re-sack the 12 and appeal the CCMA’s decision to a labour court. At issue is whether or not Xstrata knew of their HIV status through a joint NUM-Xstrata Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCR) programme that is strictly confidential. Hundreds of Tweefontein miners were tested through the programme in October and November 2010.
It is uncertain if Xstrata Coal gained access to results of the screenings, but the NUM alleges that the company does know the results. A private service provider was contracted to do the screenings and results are supposed to be shared only with the individual.
Left: NUM Regional Secretary Paris Mashego
NUM Highveld Regional Secretary Paris Mashego accused the company of dragging backward the campaign to test for the pandemic and said the NUM will continue to press for the real motive behind Xstrata’s reversal. Late this week, NUM delegates and shop stewards from many Xstrata worksites will descend on the company’s Johannesburg headquarters to manifest against the injustice.
“What we experience here with Xstrata is the same thing our Australian comrades of the CFMEU experience with the company,” said Mashego. “They cannot accept official rulings and must always appeal their losses in order to get their way. Only in this case, there is something fundamentally wrong, the anonymity and confidentially of HIV-positive workers.”
The National Education, Health, and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU) of South Africa also responded negatively to Xstrata Coal’s alleged actions. “This ghastly and barbaric behaviour by a company is a clear sign of how some big companies are failing to abide by the ILO or the OECD Codes of Conduct by violating workers’ rights and working conditions.
“This alleged discrimination against workers who are HIV-positive is a huge blow to the government’s fight against AIDS,” stated a NEHAWU spokesman, “because it sends a message to those who have the disease that they will lose their jobs if they come out.”
Xstrata Coal South Africa, 20% owned by African Rainbow Minerals Ltd., operates 11 coal mines in South Africa, and is currently developing three new projects – the Arthur Taylor Colliery Opencast Mine (ATCOM) East development, the Goedgevond coal project, and optimisation of the Zonnebloem project, all in Mpumalanga province. Together with the Tweefontein optimisation project now nearing completion, the projects will eventually produce 90% of the company’s South African coal output.