By Ed Stoddard
JOHANNESBURG, March 13 (Reuters) – South Africa’s
Labour Court has suspended a safety stoppage at a mine operated
by Northam Platinum in the first corporate legal
challenge to a government drive that has cut output in the
world’s largest platinum producer, a union said.
South Africa’s department of mineral resources has upped
on-site inspections and dramatically increased its issuing of
“Section 54s” — the regulation evoked to temporarily close
mining operations for safety violations.
“Northam Platinum brought an application for an urgent
interdict in order to have a section 54 order issued to the
company’s Zondereinde mine declared invalid,” trade union
Solidarity said in a statement.
“The Labour Court provisionally ruled in the employer’s
favour and gave the department until 27 March 2012 to submit
replying affidavits,” it said.
Neither the company nor officials at the department of
mineral resources were immediately available for comment.
But a copy of the court order obtained by Reuters says that
the Section 54 is “suspended, pending the resolution of this
application”.
Such a challenge is rare and comes against the backdrop of
industry frustration at the safety campaign and the blanket
nature of the stoppages, which have seen the closure of entire
mines.
Safety-related stoppages cost the platinum sector 300,000
ounces last year in lost output — about 5 percent of global
production and worth about $500 million at current prices.
Continued…
