7 October 2025

MEDIA RELEASE

SUMMARY: The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) is in dispute with Sibanye-Stillwater’s gold division after wage talks have collapsed into a deadlock. Despite gold selling at record highs of more than US$3 900 per ounce and management paying themselves salary hikes of up to 39% and multimillion rand bonuses, Sibanye offers workers a meagre R650 increase. The Union insists that the minerals belong to the people and, if the mines make money, then workers and their families must share in that wealth.

AMCU, along with three (3) sister unions who enjoy organisational rights at Sibanye-Stillwater’s gold operations concentrated on the West Rand and in the Free State, started wage negotiations on 14 July 2025. This happened as an unusually short wage agreement for a single year had already lapsed on 30 June 2025. After a total of five (5) wage negotiation meetings, the parties reached a deadlock and embarked on the company’s internal dispute resolution process.

“We have seen this approach before” , said AMCU President Joseph Mathunjwa. “Sibanye sends a junior negotiating team with almost no mandate to negotiate – their only mandate is to stay where their bosses told them to. This then leads to a very frustrating and drawn-out process, which inevitably leads to some sort of dispute”, he added.

Over the past few years, gold has enjoyed a powerful rally, driven by a complex interplay of macroeconomic, monetary, and geopolitical forces. From mid-2020 onward, the price of gold nearly doubled, rising by roughly 90-100% between June 2020 and mid-2025. Part of that momentum owes to its role as a safe-haven asset: investors have sought refuge in gold amid bouts of inflation, soaring public debt, and bouts of global uncertainty (for example, trade frictions, the war in Ukraine, and unstable capital markets). Furthermore, a persistent weakness in real interest rates (nominal rates minus inflation) has made non-interest-bearing assets like gold more attractive, and a relatively weak US dollar has further boosted its appeal to foreign buyers.

More recently, gold’s ascent has accelerated. During this year it has breached record highs (above US$3 900 per ounce) as speculative flows, central bank purchases, and ETF inflows reinforce the bullish trend. With markets pricing in potential interest rate cuts, and increasing anxiety about global economic instability, gold has been one of the standout performers in the commodities space in recent years.

Analysts have responded by raising target prices for Sibanye’s shares, while the continued record-breaking gold prices, now yielding around R2 million per kilogram for South African producers, have delivered a crucial tailwind for the industry. This corroborates the broader trend of gold’s rally above historic highs, fuelled by safe-haven demand, central bank buying, and investor positioning amid macroeconomic volatility.

“The gold price has been breaking records year after year, and the mines are making billions from it”, Mathunjwa pointed out. “Yet, when it comes to workers, they suddenly plead poverty. You can’t have gold selling for over R2 million a kilogram and still tell the people who mine it that there’s no money for fair wages. This is exactly why workers no longer trust the system … because the wealth they create never finds its way back to them”, he said.

At the internal dispute resolution meeting held on 2 October 2025, the four (4) unions consolidated their demands to a unified position of a monthly increase of R1 300 for the lowest-earning mineworkers, and 6,5% for miners, artisans and officials. Nevertheless, the Sibanye management team refused to move and thus a stalemate was reached.

The current offer is lower compared to previous years, especially in relation to the gold price.

When the gold price stood at US$1 268 per ounce in 2018, Sibanye-Stillwater agreed to give workers an increase of R700 per month, and in 2021 workers were given an increase of R1 000 when the gold price was at US$1 799 per ounce. As of 6 October 2025, gold had surged past US$3 900 per ounce, with one report placing it at about US$3 958,57 per ounce.

“It’s really disturbing to see how arrogant these mining bosses have become. They still want to keep workers as slaves, sucking their blood like parasites while gold prices have more than doubled. All unions have come down to a fair demand of R1 300, but the companies now want to pay even less than what they paid over the past four years”, said AMCU President Joseph Mathunjwa.

The Sibanye negotiating team is offering an increase of R650 or 4,5%. In stark contrast, the managers and executives were not as conservative when it came to their own paycheques.

According to Sibanye-Stillwater’s annual report of last year, their increases included the following:

• The new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Richard Steward saw his basic remuneration increased by 10,55%, taking him from a handsome R6,4 million to a whopping R7,2 million per year.
• Themba Nkosi (Chief People and Culture Officer) had an even bigger pay rise, with his basic pay being increased with a generous 16,1%, from R4,5 million to R5,3 million per annum.
• Sibanye’s Chief Technical and Innovation Officer, Robert van Niekerk was increased by a mind-blowing 39% from R6,1 million to R8,5 million.
• The former big boss, Neal Froneman saw his last bonus being increased from R95 million to R15,1 million. This is a massive jump of 58% in his bonus, especially when appreciated in light of his R16,2 million basic salary.

“It’s shocking that Sibanye’s bosses think workers should settle for a miserable R650 or 4,5%. increase, while they quietly fatten their own pockets”, said Mathunjwa. “The new CEO walks away with over R7 million a year, while the so-called People and Culture Officer pockets more than R5 million … yet they tell mineworkers there’s no money. This is pure hypocrisy and greed. They celebrate record profits while the people who dig the gold are told to survive on crumbs”, Mathunjwa said.

“It’s unfortunate that in this country we don’t really have a government that stands for workers anymore. We have no space to go and declare our case, even when a company is doing well, because the same government that should protect workers is the one that breaks its own collective agreements, like what happened with our sister unions in the public sector a few years back,” said Mathunjwa.

In 2020, the South African government came under fire for backtracking on the final leg of the 2018 Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) Resolution 1 of 2018, which had guaranteed wage increases for public servants over a three-year period (2018–2020). While the first two years of increases were implemented, the government failed to honour the 2020/2021 adjustment, citing fiscal constraints and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This decision drew sharp condemnation from public sector unions which accused the state of violating a binding collective agreement and undermining the principle of collective bargaining. The dispute eventually reached the Labour Appeal Court, which ruled in 2021 that the wage clause was unenforceable because it breached the Public Service Regulations and exceeded the available budget.

Nonetheless, the episode damaged trust between the state and organised labour, with unions arguing that government, as both employer and custodian of the Constitution, had set a dangerous precedent by failing to honour its own agreement.“It is clear that this government is completely captured by capital. Without fear or shame, the very custodians of the Constitution – the government itself – undermine the same Constitution that protects collective bargaining. The employer is the government, and yet it is the first to challenge the very rights it’s meant to uphold,” he added.

Following last week’s exhausting of the internal dispute resolution process, the unions are now set to refer the matter as mutual interest dispute to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). In South African labour law, disputes of interest can only be resolved through a process of conciliation – seeking consensus between parties. If no consensus can be reached, the CCMA issues a certificate of non-resolution whereafter unions can embark on protected strike action.

In November 2018, AMCU declared a strike across Sibanye-Stillwater’s gold division after wage negotiations broke down, initiating what became a five-month walkout. The strike was costly: Sibanye lost about R4 billion in earnings (approximately R800 million per month) and around 110 000 ounces of gold production.

More recently, in March 2022, AMCU along with its sister union, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) gave Sibanye a 48-hour strike notice after nine (9) months of stalled negotiations, triggering industrial action in the gold division starting the evening of 9 March 2022. That strike lasted nearly 90 (ninety) days before a new wage agreement was reached, ending the work stoppage at Sibanye’s gold mines. The 2022 strike underscored the recurring fault lines in wage bargaining at Sibanye, where lengthy deadlocks and hard stances by management have become recurring patterns.

“We will see where this takes us”, said Mathunjwa. “ As a mandate-driven organisation, we as AMCU will constantly engage with our members. If the call is to resist this arrogance of mining bosses, we will not hesitate to stand firm in the quest for social and economic justice.

These minerals belong to the people… If you make money, you must also give money the workers and their families who helped to make you rich”, Mathunjwa concluded.

*ENDS*

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For more information or media interviews, contact AMCU President Joseph Mathunjwa.