More than 400 miners and workers at Sibanye-Stillwater's operations in Nye and the Metallurgical Complex, also known as the smelter, in Columbus are preparing to strike Thursday morning as contract negotiations between the United Steelworkers union and the company have broken down.
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The union says it will commence a strike beginning at 7 a.m. Thursday.
According to Heather McDowell, Sibanye Stillwater senior vice president general counsel of legal and internal affairs, shifts have been canceled for safety reasons.
The strike would impact approximately 420 employees and their families, making it a significant development for Stillwater County, where Sibanye-Stillwater is the largest employer.
The two sides have been trying to reach a new contract deal since April.
The union says the decision to strike was made due to the company's refusal to bargain in good faith and what it calls an unlawful premature declaration of impasse.
The company denies those allegations.
The most recent tentative agreement included a five percent pay increase this year, followed by smaller raises over the next two years.
However, the union says a proposed change to incentive pay could cost some workers thousands of dollars.
Andrew Cameron, United Steelworkers Local 11-0001 recording secretary and part of the negotiating committee, said the proposed shift to a team-based incentive system takes control away from individual workers.
"A lot of our members stand to lose about 13 of their wages, 13 of their income," Cameron said. "Which basically takes control away from the worker, and we have to meet criteria set by them."
The company says the incentive changes are tied to a planned shift in operations and that the total incentive pool would actually grow.
McDowell called the development terribly disappointing, saying a tentative agreement had been reached, but it was not ratified by the union, which balked at changes to the incentive structure.
"We've made the incentive, which is actually now a larger budgeted pot of money than it was before, but it will be split more evenly among all of our hourly employees," McDowell said.
Related: Strike looming at Sibanye Stillwater mine as contract talks fall apart
Sibanye Stillwater says it has lost half a billion dollars over the last three-and-a-half years and is currently breaking even due to metal prices.
"We've gotten a commitment from our parent company, which thank goodness we have one because if we were the old stand-alone Stillwater mining company, we would absolutely be shut down," McDowell said.
Sibanye Stillwater is privately owned and based in South Africa. About a decade ago, the company had been publicly traded and based in Billings.
McDowell said Sibanye wants to keep talking, but the company decided to pause work until it is determined how things will go.
She pushed back on the union's allegations of bad-faith bargaining.
"We have met over 40 times," McDowell said. "We have copious notes of the whole situation, so we, we think that there's really no good faith chance that we could be rationally accused of bad faith bargaining."
Daniel Beluscak, union president, acknowledged the difficulty the strike would bring to workers and their families.
"Without a doubt, it's the most challenging aspect," Beluscak said. "People are going to have to provide for their families. This is suffering for everybody, right? No one, no one wins in a strike."
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