From The Mail & Guardian

The mining industry is in the doldrums. Declining metal prices and rising costs foreshadow a tumultuous time ahead for the sector which is still reeling from devastating wildcat strikes last year.

Yet mining bosses continue to rake it in – with one individual taking home much as R45-million ($4.59 million) last year – serving to fuel the ideological war between themselves and their workers, the haves and have-nots, particularly as wage negotiations and the strike season kick into gear.

Last year, the chief executives of just the top three gold and platinum miners in South Africa earned collective remuneration leaving workers and unions indifferent to pleas of poverty by mining houses in ongoing wage negotiations.

Peter Major, a mining analyst at Cadiz Corporate Solutions, said executive remuneration would continue to add fuel to the fire when it came to wage negotiations.

He said many senior directors and many in management had a short-term, selfish view, which, he felt, let a proud 150-year-old industry down.

“If these guys wanted workers to take a zero percent increase, the first thing they would do is take a pay cut. That’s what leading by example – from the front – is all about. Instead, many of these ‘leaders’ are taking increases and bonuses. And when viewed against the enormous and frequent write-downs we’ve been seeing, resignations, firings and jail time should be up for serious consideration. It’s atrocious.”

Read more at The Mail & Guardian.