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Congress of the People (COPE) congratulates workers and management at Lonmin mine for reaching an amicable solution to the labour dispute which unfortunately resulted into the death of more than 45 fatalities.

COPE believes that the unfortunate events at Lonmin could have been avoided if normal labour dispute mechanisms were allowed to take normal route through negotiation, mediation and arbitration.

We congratulate workers for having understood that the negotiation process always be a mutual give and take.

COPE hopes management understand there is always a shift of loyalty amongst workers and their unions. And that the National Union of Mine Workers (NUM) might have been a majority, but now it seems the Association of Mine workers and Construction Union (Amcu) has more influence in that mine.

We therefore urge employers to understand that to have labour peace means being flexible in interacting with workers’ representatives regardless of their union affiliation. It means industrial relations regime has to accept substantially represented union or structure should be engaged in good faith.

Furthermore, the role played by South African Council of Churches (SACC) in intervening should be highly appreciated by all South Africans.

We hope government has learnt that their attempt to establish a parallel or alternative religious group to SACC will never have the same legitimate as SACC.

COPE urge the SACC to also intervene in Kuruman in order to stabilise the area so that pupils can go back to school and education activities can be normalised.