Thousands of workers represented by the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) have downed tools at Ford South Africa over the company’s refusal to pay staff bonuses.
Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said in a statement that the reason for the strike is that “Ford is refusing to share its profits with workers”.
“Our members are the creators of wealth and Ford has benefited hugely from the sweat and labour of workers,” Jim said.
“Ford management pretends not to understand the demand and they keep claiming it is ‘impermissible’ and that workers have no right to demand bonuses. We reject this with the contempt it deserves,” he added.
The strike comes after the union served Ford SA with a 48-hour strike notice on Tuesday.
“The Numsa president, Andrew Chirwa, addressed more than 3,000 workers at the quarterly general meeting and workers are angry that Ford is trying to deny them bonuses,” Jim said.
“Ford failed to reach an agreement with Numsa at the conciliation held on June 11 at the CCMA offices in Pretoria. After picketing rules were concluded, the commissioner issued the certificate to strike,” Jim said.
Jim added that Ford SA could afford to pay workers “some kind of a bonus” as the company had “made a fortune” in recent years.
According to MacroTrends, Jim said the company’s gross profit for the 12 months ending March 31, 2024 was $25.13 billion, a 0.45% year-on-year increase. Gross profit was $25bn during the previous year and in 2022 and 2021 it was $23bn and 21.69bn respectively.
Ford SA corporate communications manager Duduzile Nxele told Business Day that the company had requested its non-striking employees to work from home for the duration of the strike. Nxele said the company held a long-term commitment to SA and had “invested heavily in its operations and local employees”.
“Regrettably, production disruptions have a profound impact on SA’s economy and global reputation as a place to do business. When making decisions about future investment, consistency of production is vital to maintaining competitiveness and an important factor when determining manufacturing locations,” Nxele said.
According to the latest government statistics, the automotive sector is one of the country’s largest sectors, and the fifth largest export segment, accounting for 18.1% of total exports. The sector contributes an estimated 4.3% to GDP and employs more than 110 000 people.
Ford SA announced in November 2023 that it would invest R5.2bn to develop its SA subsidiary into the only global manufacturer of plug-in, hybrid-electric Ranger bakkies.
