Johannesburg - The Congress of SA Trade Unions on Monday called on the South African government to meet with China over falling steel prices exacerbated by its cheaper steel exports.
“We call on government to engage the Chinese government to introduce voluntary export restraint; a measure that was introduced in the clothing and textiles industry in the early 2000s,” said acting secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali.
“It is Cosatu's view though that the raising of the import tariff and introduction of voluntary export restraint, while they would ensure a temporary reprieve for the steel industry, do not constitute strong enough measures aimed at changing the structure of the economy.”
Industry CEOs, labour unions and government met on Friday in Pretoria to come up with resolutions that would save the industry and thousands of jobs which are on the line.
The industry bosses and unions said on Monday the resolutions agreed upon to mitigate the crisis in the sector were for the medium to long term, and not immediate.
This comes as several metal and steel companies having issued workers with Section 189 notices in the past few weeks, as the industry struggles to survive the tough market conditions, largely blamed on cheap steel imports from China.
Ntshalitshali said his organisation had been calling for import parity pricing to be abandoned, especially in the troubled steel industry.
“Steel is a critical input in the infrastructure development programme. Cosatu wants a clear commitment from the steel industry that it would abandon import parity pricing and it will not revert to it when the economic conditions have improve.”
“This should be one of the conditions for government interventions to save the steel industry.”
Cosatu supported the call by the industry to government to increase import tariffs to save the industry and jobs.
Said Ntshalintshali: “The problems are exacerbated by cheap steel imports from China in particular. Cosatu is concerned that the slowing down of production in the mining sector, because of the low commodity prices, will further cause more harm to jobs as mines are a big consumer of steel products in the economy.”
The trade union federation also demanded that a moratorium be placed on looming retrenchments, that a commitment be made to cut executives' salaries in the industry and that ''billions in surplus funds'' in the Unemployment Insurance Fund be used to bail out companies in distress.
“Again, factors that resulted in a low uptake in this regard should be identified and dealt with accordingly to ensure the optimal success of the intervention,” said Ntshalintshali.
ANA