Thungela announced that it has signed a three-year wage agreement with the National Union of Mineworkers which is the recognised labour union across Thungela's operations, and which represents 86% of unionised employees. This agreement enables the implementation of a new wage agreement across Thungela's operations, other than Mafube which runs an independent wage negotiation process. The agreement is effective from 1 June 2022 and covers a period of three-years through to the end of May 2025.

The wage agreement increases salary and salary-related allowances and is expected to increase the total labour cost-to-company, on average by approximately 6% per annum over the three-year period. Under the agreement, Thungela and the NUM also commit to engaging the board of trustees of the SACO Employee Partnership Plan Trust ("EPP") to review and amend the trust deed to enable the payment of awards made to the EPP in the same financial year in which they are declared, as opposed to vesting over a period of three years.