Impala Platinum Reaches Wage Settlement With Mineworkers, Union Says

Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd., the world’s second-largest producer of the metal, reached a one-year wage deal with the National Union of Mineworkers, according to a negotiator for employees.

Impala will increase the pay of lower-grade workers by 8 percent and boost compensation for higher-grade employees by 7.5 percent, NUM negotiator Eddie Majadibodu said in an interview.

“We made it clear today was the last day for talks,” Majadibodu said.

NUM, South Africa’s biggest labor union, said last month it may strike after talks became deadlocked. The union and the company will create a team to investigate worker concerns about housing and transport, and expects a report within 15 days, Majadibodu said. Bob Gilmour, a spokesman for Johannesburg-based Impala, declined to comment.

Impala extracts almost all of its platinum from the world’s richest deposit of the metal, the Bushveld Geological Complex in South Africa. The country produces more than three-quarters of the world’s platinum.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nicky Smith in Johannesburg at nsmith38@bloomberg.net

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