The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) on Tuesday said it would resist plans by steel group Iscor to axe 2 000 workers by December 1 as a result of the strong rand.
Numsa spokesperson Dumisa Ntuli said the company would resume consultation with the union on Wednesday on the reasons and process towards the planned retrenchments.
This comes after the other two unions represented at the company agreed on a two-month moratorium on retrenchments. Numsa warned it would resist the plans of the company to retrench workers through protest and massive strike actions.
“Iscor is not doing the right thing, they manipulate everything to serve their interest. We strongly believe that poor management, racism and greed, not the strong rand, are influencing the steel company to cut jobs,” he said.
The union said the purpose of the retrenchment exercise was to destroy its membership of 3 500 members.
“Employment had fallen from 44 000 in the 1980s to a marginal 13 500 in 2003. Clearly, our members are bleeding and dying as a result of job losses.”
“More disturbingly, is the nefarious and dirty approach of the two white unions to agree with Iscor on retrenchments at the direct exclusion of Numsa.”
Ntuli said it was unreasonable and illogical that workers sacrifice their jobs when the rand strengthened while they did not enjoy profits and benefits when it was weak.
The trade union also lashed out at the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), a shareholder in Iscor, for its “unwillingness” to address huge problems of inefficiency, restructuring and poor management.
“We have not seen any firm commitment from IDC to address the impact of steel pricing by Iscor to local companies. The impact of monopoly steel pricing is felt by engineering and mining companies.”
Attempts by I-Net Bridge to obtain a response from Iscor were unsuccessful. — I-Net Bridge