Johannesburg - South Africa had the third-highest unemployment rate in the world for people between the ages of 15 and 24, trailing only Greece and Spain, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) said yesterday before its national strike tomorrow to highlight the issue of youth unemployment.
The socio-economic strike is protected in terms of the Labour Relations Act as the union has served a notice at government, labour and business negotiating body Nedlac.
Irvin Jim, the general secretary of Numsa, said close to 500 000 people would take to the streets to demand jobs for young people.
He said half of the people between the ages of 15 and 29 in the country were unemployed and formed 71 percent of the unemployed population.
Marches will take place in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein, Emalahleni and George.
Jim said the stayaway was supported by a coalition of trade unions, community groups, student groups, organisations of unemployed people, taxi associations and women and youth formations.
He said the Employment Tax Incentive Act, also known as the youth wage subsidy, which was spearhead by the National Treasury last year, asked the working class to subsidise employers.
Jim said Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, when presenting his Budget speech, had said that since the introduction of the youth employment tax incentive in January there had been 56 000 beneficiaries.
He said South Africans should know that since the act was signed into law by President Jacob Zuma in December last year, it had been made possible for employers to backdate their claims for the subsidy to last October. Therefore many of the 56 000 people that Gordhan referred to might have already been employed last year.
He said for the 56 000 beneficiaries there would be no mandatory training, no bargaining council agreement, sectoral determination or collective agreement. There would be no enjoyment of benefits such as a provident fund and other benefits.
Jim said no figure was given for actual jobs created since the act was signed.
Speaking on the sidelines of the press conference, Numsa deputy general secretary Karl Cloete said the union would demand a double-digit wage increase during the forthcoming negotiations in the metals and engineering sector.
This follows the expiry of a three-year wage agreement.
He said the wage demands would be handed to the employers during the course of this week. Once Numsa was certain the employers had received the demands, the union would then disclose them to the media.
The Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of SA said on Sunday it would challenge trade unions during the negotiations to consider overall productivity, job retention, growth and the survival of the manufacturing industry.