Impala Platinum Mine is threatening not to renew the contract of JIC Mining Services, part of the Gupta firm Oakbay Investments, since this company no longer has a South African bank account.
Impala Platinum gave JIC until 31 October 2016 to open a local bank account again in order to prevent the termination of the contracts of JIC’s 340 workers employed at Impala’s Rustenburg mines.
According to Solidarity General Secretary Gideon du Plessis, it seems that JIC is attributing Impala Platinum’s ultimatum that it requires a local bank account as the sole reason for possible retrenchments. However, they keep silent about the fact that it was the Gupta family’s dubious financial activities that have led to the retrenchment situation.
“It is understandable that Impala cannot pay a contractor such as JIC in cash. We therefore request that JIC and the Oakbay Group should get their affairs in order since employees now have to pay the price for these companies’ misdeeds. Meanwhile, we’ll request Impala on behalf of our members to give JIC more time to get its house in order,” Du Plessis said.
Du Plessis added that during the retrenchment consultation with JIC, Solidarity will also object against a provision in the company’s section 189 retrenchment notice in terms of which the transfer of potentially affected employees to other JIC workplaces should be in support of and to promote the company’s employment equity plan. “Transfers, therefore, are unlawfully based on race. The latter is contrary to several court rulings in this regard,” Du Plessis said.
