Sibanye-Stillwater signs one-year wage deal for gold mines
SIBANYE-Stillwater on Monday announced a one-year wage agreement with unions at its South African gold mines, comprising a 5.5% increase until end-June 2025.Commenting on the contrast of the agreement with recent five-year wage deals by other gold and platinum group metals companies in South Africa, Sibanye-Stillwater CEO Neal Froneman said it was to enable his recently restructured mines to stabilise.“Since early 2023, the South African gold operations have undergone significant restructuring in a very volatile inflationary environment and the operations have not yet fully stabilised,” he said in the announcement.“We therefore believe it is more prudent and fair to re-engage again in July 2025.”The agreement was reached with the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), UASA, and Solidarity in respect of the group’s Beatrix, Driefontein and Kloof operations.The detail of the agreement is that category 4 to 8 employees, miners and artisans will receive whichever is the higher of a 5.5% or R900 per month increase. Officials will receive a 5.5% increase.The last gold mine to be restructured by Sibanye-Stillwater was Beatrix in July when the group announced voluntary separation packages with 629 employees while another 111 employees were retrenched. A total of 1,130 contractors were also cut from the mine.That action took the number of retrenchments in Sibanye-Stillwater’s South Africa region, including the PGM operations, to 966 employees out of a total of about 11,500 employees and contractors who were potentially affected by restructuring activities.“We are pleased to have finalised this wage agreement, which is both fair for employees and affordable for the South African gold operations,” said Froneman.The performance of the gold mines was a highlight of the group’s third quarter production report. They generated 292% increase in adjusted Ebitda of R1.35bn ($75m), partly owing to a 24% increase in the rand gold price.Froneman said on November 5 that Sibanye-Stillwater’s gold mines “are expected to generate substantial cashflow” in the current quarter given the price of the metal has continued to improve.Gold is trading at $2,673/oz, a 2% decline in the past seven days but 30% higher this year. Some banks have forecast the metal will yet test $2,800/oz before the year-end before pressing on to $3,000 to $3,100/oz in the course of next year.Sibanye-Stillwater’s balance sheet has been under pressure owing to a heavy decline in prices for PGMs as well as nickel which it also produces.The group is expected to raise between $600m and $700m in funding which Standard Bank Group Equities analyst Adrian Hammond said in a recent report was “necessary to remain below covenant levels for the next six to 12 months”.The post Sibanye-Stillwater signs one-year wage deal for gold mines appeared first on Miningmx.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com
Quelle: Mining.com
