Lonmin, one of SA’s major platinum producers, will lay off up to 1,139 employees and contractors at six marginal and developmental shafts and pits it will put into care and maintenance. Lonmin laid off 5,433 people and contractors in 2015 and redeployed a further 1,428 that year as it restructured its old mines and focused on its newer, more profitable operations. That process has taken another step with Lonmin now issuing a section 189 notice in terms of the Labour Relations Act to its workforces at several of these old mines it has kept open in 2017. It plans to remove contractors and remaining employees at its E1, E2, 1B, W1 and Newman operations as well as remove employees from its K4 shaft, a partially built mine which is key to Lonmin’s future but was stopped in 2013. The only production shaft of those closures is E2, which is operated by contractors but is not making any money. The shaft contributes less than 1% of the roughly 650,000oz of platinum Lonmin produces a year. Of ...
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