Johannesburg - South Africa's Association of Mineworkers and Construction (AMCU) will decide on Sunday if its members in the ailing gold sector will go on strike, a move that will be contested by two of the three producers it has reached an impasse with over wages.
AMCU, which led a five-month strike in the platinum sector last year and is known for its uncompromising stance, has not moved from its demand for a basic wage of 12,500 rand ($940) a month for entry-level miners, more than double current levels.
But of the three gold producers it has deadlocked with - Harmony Gold, AngloGold Ashanti and Sibanye Gold - it is only at the latter where it has a clear path to a strike that would not be deemed wildcat.
The Chamber of Mines has said Harmony and AngloGold will go to court to prevent AMCU from striking because they have signed wage deals with three other unions representing most of their workers.
The industry says this means they can apply the same agreement to the rest of their workforce. This happened two years ago in the gold sector, when AMCU was forced to accept agreements signed by other unions.
Sibanye's situation is different: it will only sign an agreement if all four of the unions represented at its operations accept it.
“We would rather get all four to sign up so there is harmony in the work place,” said Sibanye spokesman James Wellsted.
Even if Sibanye wanted to, it could not impose an agreement on AMCU because the other three unions combined do not represent a majority of its workers.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has 43 percent representation at Sibanye and two smaller unions have six percent, for a total of 49 percent against AMCU's 42 percent.
The stakes are high as an AMCU strike at Sibanye - while its members were prevented from downing tools at other producers -could stoke labour tensions. Dozens of miners have been killed over the past three years in violence rooted in a turf war between AMCU and NUM.
Sibanye is the most profitable of South Africa's gold producers but its conventional mines are labour-intensive, employing around 44,000 people.
Overall, South Africa's gold industry, which has produced a third of the bullion mined in history, is in a state of decline as prices fall and the costs of extracting ore soar in the world's deepest mines.
REUTERS