Nissan brings forward planned shutdown

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Published Jul 16, 2014

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Nissan South Africa has now also halted production at its vehicle manufacturing plant in Rosslyn in Pretoria.

This means that only two of the country’s seven vehicle manufacturers, Mercedes-Benz South Africa (MBSA) and Volkswagen South Africa, are still producing normally.

Production at the other plants has been severely disrupted or halted because of component shortages caused by the strike by members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) in the steel and engineering industry.

A stalemate has now developed between Numsa and the Steel and Engineering Federation of South Africa (Seifsa).

Seifsa chief executive Kaizer Nyatsumba said yesterday that the federation had exhausted its mandate in the negotiations and refuted Numsa statements that it was waiting for Seifsa to get back to it with a new offer.

“The final offer made last week, which was intended to end the strike and to see employees back at work this week, failed to accomplish its goal and has since been withdrawn,” he said.

Nyatsumba added that Seifsa had reverted to its previous offer of a 10 percent wage increase this year and 9 percent in each of the next two years.

He said no follow-up meetings had been scheduled.

Nissan SA confirmed yesterday that it had temporarily closed its production plant in Rosslyn for operational reasons as part of a planned shutdown.

Mike Whitfield, the managing director, stressed yesterday that the shutdown from midday on Monday had been planned but confirmed it had been brought forward from next week because of the strike.

Whitfield said the shutdown was intended to balance inventories and production would resume again from next Tuesday as the plant had sufficient component supplies to do so.

Whitfield said stopping production now would help production start up next week without any supply disruption but obviously if the strike continued for two more weeks it would have insufficient parts to continue producing.

He said the about 1 600 workers in Nissan’s plant had been told to stay at home but in terms of the National Bargaining Forum (NBF) agreement for planned shutdowns, they would be paid 30 percent of their normal wage rate.

In terms of the NBF agreement, the “no work, no pay” rule applies to workers at plants that have been forced to halt production because of a shortage of components.

Whitfield said Nissan SA would also have to apply the rule if it had to stop production because of shortages.

Toyota South Africa Motors’ Quantum and truck plant is still operating.

MBSA chief executive Arno van der Merwe said supply lines were now becoming critical at its East London plant.

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