JOHANNESBURG, July 24 (ANA) - Afribusiness said on Monday that a strike by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), if it went ahead, would cause irreparable damage to the economy.
This comes as Numsa last week slammed “intransigent” employers in the engineering sector and warned of a “total shutdown” in the industry as it went into a fifth wage negotiation meeting. Numsa declared a dispute with employers in the engineering sector wage negotiations which deadlocked last month.
Afribusiness’s labour law advice unit manager, Charles Castle, warned that the strike with which Numsa was threatening the entire metal and engineering industry would harm, rather than benefit, the workers.
Castle said if Numsa proceeded with its strike, the sector should expect more retrenchments and job losses which South Africa could ill afford at this stage with the current unemployment rate higher than 27%.
“We understand the economic difficulties that employees in these sectors face. Considering the current economic situation of South Africa, it is irrational and unjust to employers and workers alike to embark on a strike as a result of unreasonable demands,” Castle said in a statement.
“Employers will be left with no other alternative but to commence with retrenchments as a result of affordability and profit margins.”
The union, which represents about 140 000 workers in the metal and engineering sector, is demanding a 15% wage increase across the board based on the actual rate workers are earning, not on the new minimum rate. It wants increases backdated to 1 July as the wage agreement lapsed at the end of June.
But employers are proposing, among other things, a three-year wage agreement offering of a 5.3% wage hike across the board for the first year of the agreement based on the minimum rate, and not the actual rate that workers are earning.
