Union hostage drama blasted as ‘fake news’ by NUMSA

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa on Friday dismissed reports that it had held a rival union’s members hostage at the Lanxess chrome mine in Rustenburg.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Thursday about 100 of its members were held underground at the mine by NUMSA members.

NUMSA denies hostage situation

“This is false and completely misleading because it did not happen,” NUMSA regional secretary Jerry Morulane said in response.

NUM branch chairperson at Lanxess Unforget Dube said union members were detained after NUMSA embarked on an unprotected strike on Thursday morning. Dube said NUM offices at the operation were taken over by force, with shop stewards manhandled in full view of company security personnel.

Morulane denied NUM shop stewards were roughed up.

“The truth is that this is a dispute between workers and the employer. Contract workers at Lanxess locked the mine captain in his office. They were angry because he allegedly did not sign off an invoice, which resulted in them not getting paid,”  he said.

“Workers have been demanding that management resolve this issue urgently, but they wanted Lanxess head office management which is based in Johannesburg to resolve this issue because they do not trust the local management.”

He said the mine captain was eventually released.

A worker at the company who did not want to be identified, told African News Agency no one was taken hostage, but confirmed NUM offices were forcefully closed in response to what he called a misleading statement the union issued about the situation.

Last June, NUMSA members staged a nine-day underground sit-in at the mine, pushing for the union to be recognised as the dominant labour organisation.

By African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Stella Mapenzauswa