Cape Town - Members of the provincial National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) picketed outside the Retail Motor Industry Organisation (RMI) offices in Parow yesterday, demanding the urgent ratification of the settlement agreement on wage increase.
The union said the 8% wage agreement which was signed in January last year had not been ratified due to the RMI’s deliberate attempts to frustrate the operations of the Motor Industry Bargaining Council (Mibco).
Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim: “This delay meant that thousands of employees and their families had not yet received the increase and they have suffered irreparable losses because of the shenanigans of the RMI.
“Even in the face of a global pandemic, this employer has shown an absolute callousness for the value of human life. They do not care at all about the suffering of workers and their families and have done everything possible to delay the ratification of the agreement and ensure that ultimately, it is not gazetted.
“They even went as far as supporting the fraudulent membership of National Employers’ Association of South Africa at Mibco.
“We demand that RMI must stop playing games with workers’ lives and ratify the wage agreement at Mibco,” he said.
Numsa regional secretary Vuyo Lufele said RMI was refusing to attend a Mibco meeting that would take a decision to adopt the agreement and send it for gazetting, which would ultimately lead to extension of the agreement to non-parties.
“They have told Mibco that they are not available for the meeting for October and November,” he said.
RMI CEO Jan Schoeman said contrary to the statement issued by Numsa, the RMI alone could not ratify the wage agreement and required a resolution by Mibco.
Schoeman said Mibco was in the process of convening a general meeting of councillors to ratify the agreement.
“It should be noted that the agreement was not signed in January 2019, but in January 2020 after numerous demands by the RMI for Numsa to do so.
“The RMI eventually placed Numsa on terms to sign the agreement to avoid any further delays,” he said.
Schoeman said the Numsa statement which claimed that thousands of employees had not yet received the 8% increase which was secured in the last round of wage talks was partially true.
He said many employers had implemented the increases on a voluntary basis and that there was not a standard 8% increase for all employees.
Cape Argus