Johannesburg - About 50 000 jobs are set to be lost – this time in the steel industry – after unions failed to convince companies to halt retrenchments at the industry’s main companies in the country.
And economists calculate that should the entire steel industry collapse, which some say is almost certain should no stern intervention be made, 190 000 jobs are on the line.
Companies considering retrenchment or closing shop include Arcelor Mittal in Vereeniging and Evraz Highveld Steel in Mpumalanga and Scaw Metals Group.
On Friday unions including Solidarity, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), new metals union the Metal and Allied Workers Union of SA and UASA, and the metals bargaining council met with the government and business.
But the meeting failed to render any measures to stop the jobs bloodbath.
This meeting followed the formation of a task team during three month’s of negotiations through the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration after Section 189 notices were issued.
Some of the industry’s plants are also to be closed completely or mothballed, while others have already operated for months on short time.
The near collapse of the steel industry comes as the government is trying to prevent the loss of thousands of jobs in the gold and platinum industry, while global demand for these minerals has fallen dramatically amid a global downturn.
Trade union Solidarity’s head of metal and engineering, Marius Croucamp, said Friday’s meeting was seized with discussing ten issues, but that government did not make any immediate offers to stop the job losses.
The government was represented by Trade and Industry Minister, Rob Davies, and Economic Development Minister, Ebrahim Patel.
Neither ministry was immediately available for comment.
Croucamp said that there was no immediate relief for either workers or the companies involved.
“There was nothing that government could offer to stop it. For example putting tariffs on steel will require a process to follow including public hearings,” Croucamp said.
“If government does not go through the process they will face legal action. Tariffs would have to be on different types of steel. Government is not prepared to short-circuit the process.”
Unions have been calling for stricter anti-dumping laws, by increasing import taxes on certain listed types of steel so they don’t stream into the country.
“But industry will apply for those (anti-dumping laws) to stop it from happening. There will be different applications from each company. In Mittal’s case, it will submit applications by the end of the month. But it will take months before this will work to stop job losses,” Croucamp said.
He said there was a very high probability that the entire steel industry would collapse, with Mittal threatening to close its plants in Vereeniging. Plants in Van der Bijl Park, Saldanha Bay and Newcastle are also at risk.
Scaw Metals was closing three plants, so was not simply retrenching some staff.
“Companies will shut down furnaces if they are not selling. There is an over-supply of steel in the world. The Chinese are dumping but their steel is highly subsidised. Our companies cannot compete with that,” Croucamp said.
He said unions had also complained in Friday’s meeting about problems with procurement, for example the purchase of trains from Spain and general state infrastructure construction.
There was however some hope that when the country’s train tracks were revamped this could serve as an opportunity to use South African produced steel again.
Retrenchments, following the Sect 189 process begun in June, are set to begin next month.
Solidarity represents employees at 26 companies, but 75 companies are already operating on short time.
Labour Bureau