Glencore South Africa has issued a retrenchment notice for its Group Services Department’s employees that entitles them to take voluntary exit packages.
The company said that an internal memo, issued on Monday, had been directed to workers in the department.
Company spokesperson Shivani Chegrum said the department had about 30 employees, “90 percent of whom could be absorbed in other functions of the company."
According to the memo, the department was busy with consultations for a Section 189 process, following completion of phase 1 of the overhead optimization projects, where it was contemplated that some support services may not be able to keep the current structures in their present form.
"One of the avoidance measures to minimise the possible impact of forced retrenchments discussed within the unions and non-unionised employees as part of the consultation process is to open up voluntary separation packages across all GOSA complexes," the memo said.
Chegrum said it was restructuring the department which provides services to the coal division, including “communications, learnerships and development "which were not core functions of the company.
She said organised labour was on board with the restructuring. According to the memo, the rules were that all applications received would be evaluated by management to determine the suitability of potentially affected employees to fill the role, should the application be approved.
“Where skills need to be retained to ensure continuity or there is no match in the skills of potentially affected employees, applications will not be approved," the memo read.
Glencore is in in the spotlight with local civic groups calling for investigations into its operations following the Anglo-Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company admitting to paying more than $100 million (R1.5 billion) in bribes to officials in Brazil, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, South Sudan and Venezuela between 2007 and 2018.
The Bench Marks Foundation, which has conducted investigations on Glencore on pollution in some African countries, has called for an investigation into Glencore in Africa, particularly in South Africa.
banele.ginindza@inl.co.za
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