After a series of wage negotiations between the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) and the Steel Engineering Industry Federation of South Africa (Seifsa), there seems to be no end in sight to the wage impasse.
This week’s wage talks between the two parties failed yet again to yield positive results.
The trade union on Friday accused the employer organisation of not improving the “disgraceful” wage offer of 4,3% to 310 000 workers employed in the steel and engineering industry.
The union is, among other things, demanding wage increases of 12% for the lowest grade and 11% for the highest grade workers. It is also demanding that the wage parameters be set at 6% to 10% for the second year and a two-year wage agreement be established in the engineering and motor sectors.
Numsa said that the employer federation rejected all its core demands. The union has rejected the 4,3% wage offer by Seifsa and said it will now join the Congress of South African Trade Union’s (Cosatu) protest action on June 27 to formally register its dissatisfaction with low wage increases.
Seifsa last week said that there was a planned series of at least eight formal scheduled negotiating meetings and there were currently 58 individual demands on the bargaining table.
“These, together with the trade unions’ so-called “non-negotiable” demand for a 12% wage increase, represents an attempt to secure worker gains at a level totally unaffordable to industry employers. … The trade unions once again emphasised that they were not prepared to withdraw any of their 58 demands,” Seifsa said in a statement.
As part of the Cosatu’s action, Numsa will hand-over a separate memorandum to all Seifsa offices across the country.
The union added that in the next two weeks the union will have lunch-hour protest action in all steel and engineering companies.
The parties will meet again on June 14 in an attempt to resolve the wage dispute.
“We are not optimistic that the future wage talks will deliver the desired results. The wage talks have drawn definite distinctions between the parties,” Numsa spokesperson Dumisa Ntuli said. ‒ I-Net Bridge