OreCo North West: The Strike that Wasn’t

Description

OreCo North West: The Strike that Wasn’t: Abstract

OreCo North West: The Strike that Wasn’t is a case study by Claire Beswick, Alison Foote and Jennifer Lindsey-Renton.

In August 2012, 44 people were killed during an unprotected strike by employees of platinum miner, Lonmin, at its Marikana mine in South Africa’s North West province. The strike had spread to mining companies across the country, but OreCo North West (a division of an international mining group of the same name) had managed to avoid damaging industrial action, despite the threat of such action during the events at Marikana. Now, in December 2012, reflecting on 2012 and planning for 2013, Henry Dlamini, executive director human resources at OreCo, wondered if it had been good luck or good policies that had helped OreCo to avoid such labour hostilities.

Teaching objectives

The objective of this case is to enable discussion and learning about successful management of industrial conflict in a volatile environment.