JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Sept. 23, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Durban Roodepoort Deep, Limited ("DRD") (JSE:DUR) (Nasdaq:DROOY) announced a breakthrough today (23.09.03) with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) regarding efforts to save jobs at its troubled North West Operations (NWO).
The union eventually signed an agreement this morning on changed work practices at the NWO's Buffelsfontein 10 and 11 shafts which could save 1,550 of the 4,504 jobs the company announced yesterday would have to be cut. Management and three other employee organisations -- the Mine Workers Union/Solidarity, UASA and SAEWA -- signed the agreement two weeks ago.
"While we could have done without the NUM's theatrics during the last couple of weeks regarding signing off on proposals which were -- in fact -- its own, it's heartening that the union has eventually signed the agreement and there is the real prospect now of saving at least 1,550 jobs," said Divisional Director of DRD's South African Operations Deon van der Mescht this afternoon.
Van der Mescht said that, ahead of any further moves from the NUM signaling its recognition of the serious plight of the NWO, "there is no alternative" to pressing on with the process of shedding the balance of 2,954 jobs.
The company's social plan to assist affected workers and their families, driven by a broadly representative monitoring committee, had already been set in motion, van der Mescht said.
Commenting on the NUM's stated intention to begin strike action from Sunday, van der Mescht said: "The complete absence of logic here is breath-taking; strike action will simply make a bad situation worse; spraguing agreed rescue plans for the rest of the NWO."
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