The Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) withdrew its lockout notice to Solidarity yesterday following a meeting of its council in the afternoon.
The Seifsa council is made up of chairpersons of employer associations affiliated to the federation and is its highest decision-making body.
It took the decision a week ago to approve the 48-hour lockout notice to all unions within the metals and engineering sector, including Solidarity, which does not intend to strike.
Judge Anton Steenkamp at the Labour Court in Cape Town defined a lockout to Business Report as the exclusion by an employer from the employer’s workplace for the purpose of compelling the employees to accept a demand in respect of any matter of mutual interest between employer and employee. “It is, in other words, the employer’s equivalent of the strike weapon.”
Seifsa said the withdrawal of the notice followed a meeting between its chief executive, Kaizer Nyatsumba, and Solidarity general secretary Gideon du Plessis.
Nyatsumba, who had requested the meeting, said he appreciated that Solidarity was sufficiently concerned about the poor state of the economy, including the ailing metals and engineering industries.
The National Employers’ Association of SA, a body represented at the metal industries bargaining council, urged the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) yesterday to abandon a decision to go on strike from today and return to the negotiating table.
“The differences between us can be resolved. What we need is direct, open and robust debate in an attempt to better understand each other and engage in a process where solutions are found,” chief executive Gerhard Papenfus said.
“There are structural defects in this industry and the sooner employers and unions engage in [a] joint solution-finding process, and remain engaged until solutions are found, the better it will be for all.”
The union is demanding a 12 percent raise for metals and engineering workers and wants labour brokers banned. Employers have proposed a three-year deal that includes increases of as much as 8 percent in the first year.
The strike by 220 000 members of Numsa in the sector and at Eskom could cripple the economy because the industries at risk comprised about 4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), Citigroup said. “Depending on the length of the strike, the GDP impact could be severe,” Gina Schoeman, one of the US bank’s economists, said.
The strike might last at least a month and if it did, third-quarter GDP had a “substantial risk of falling negative again”.
A protracted strike would affect exports and lead to a substantial widening of the shortfall on the current account in the third quarter, she said.
“If production is off line for even a month, the likely impact on exports is meaningful, particularly as about 40 percent of export goods are related to the sectors that would be impacted by the strike.”