Johannesburg - The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) is planning to strike in defence of collective bargaining that could signal a blow to the troubled steel industry.
Numsa’s plan of rolling out mass action is against the backdrop of the closure of the country’s second-biggest producer, Evraz Highveld Steel and Vanadium, and job cuts across the board, including at Scaw Metals, as cheap Chinese imports coupled by weak steel prices wreak havoc in the industry.
Even the government’s introduction of tariffs to protect mainly South Africa’s biggest steel producer ArcelorMittal SA posed the risk of destroying the downstream manufacturing sector, according to the smaller players.
Job losses in the metals and engineering industries between the first quarter and fourth quarter of last year amounted to more than 11 000, according to Statistics SA.
Strike date
Numsa’s general secretary, Irvin Jim, indicated that once the union got a certificate of non-resolution it would announce a date for the strike.
“All sectors are on knees because of (the) state of (the) economy. The campaign to defend centralised collective bargaining will be the mother of all battles,” he said yesterday.
This as Numsa was forced to declare a dispute with employers over the fate of the Metal and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council (MEIBC), over the future of centralised collective bargaining.
Jim penned a statement this week in which he blamed employer organisations, the National Employers Association of SA (Neasa) and the SA Engineers and Founders Association, for refusing to agree to the extension of levy agreements to MEIBC by non-party members, which lapsed in May.
“Employers have also refused to agree to the council’s budget, which included an 18 percent increase in levies for 2016/17 financial year. It has not received an increase since 2011, thereby resulting in a very serious inability to service and manage the affairs of the bargaining council,” he said.
“The implication of a collapsed bargaining council will be devastating for workers, particularly as employers will not collect retirement funds for workers and put the future of the Metal Industries Benefit Funds Administrators in jeopardy.”
Themba Sepotokele, an ArcelorMittal SA spokesman, said the company respected the rights of organised labour to protest and had formal engagements with the unions.
“Regarding the loss of jobs, we are doing everything to protect jobs in this tough economic climate and trading conditions given the challenges posed by the influx of the cheap steal from China,” Sepotokele said.
Gerhard Papenfus, the chief executive of Neasa, which represents 2 500 small businesses in the steel industry, said the trouble with collective bargaining was that wage agreements of many years were unaffordable, and business could no longer do business.
“Numsa will not fix the problem with rolling mass action. Employees will not agree to it. If you want collective bargaining, fix council,” Papenfus said.
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