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No agreement could be reached between Solidarity and Sasol at the CCMA today. According to Solidarity Chief Executive Dr Dirk Hermann, the mediation was deferred to get more clarity on the final Mining Charter’s wording.

Meanwhile, Solidarity’s strike continues. According to Sasol’s latest reports its maintenance project is already about 96 hours behind schedule.

Solidarity has also decided to escalate the strike to a day of protest involving all 180 000 of its members. Last week, the High Court set aside a decision by Nedlac not to approve Solidarity’s application for all its members to go on a lawful strike in a show of solidarity with the Sasol workers. Solidarity will again appear before Nedlac this coming Friday.

The CCMA became involved in the dispute under section 150 of the Labour Relations Act.

According to Hermann, it is not just in the interest of Sasol but of South Africa that the dispute is resolved. “South Africa should not settle for simplistic solutions such as racial exclusion for complex problems,” Hermann said.

The final version of the Mining Charter is now serving before Cabinet for approval. According to this charter all workers, irrespective of race, must be part of employee share ownership plans. Sasol owns coal mines and must therefore comply with the Mining Charter. “Mining Charter negotiations took years to complete and it involved business, government, trade unions and local communities. Through its Khanyisa Plan, Sasol wishes to contravene the agreement reached between these parties. The point of departure during the charter negotiations was that workers are workers and that they should not be divided on the basis of race. What Sasol is doing now is the complete opposite, namely to cause major racial tension and division,” Hermann warned.

Issued by Solidarity