About 350 workers at Nissan South Africa and members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) protested against retrenchments outside the Japanese embassy in Pretoria on Friday.
Nissan SA has given 410 of its workers retrenchment packages, with effect from April 12.
Numsa spokesperson Mziwakhe Hlangani said Nissan SA wants to get rid of permanent staff by replacing them with contract employees who will be paid a ”slave wage”.
”The fact that Nissan wants to replace workers means that there is work, so why are they retrenching?” asked Steve Nhlapo, of the International Metalworkers’ Federation.
”They are greedy,” he added. He said Nissan had told workers that failure to come up with new models for the Fiat range, failure of planning, and cost-cutting were the main reasons for the retrenchments.
Nissan should rather retrench those people who failed to plan properly and reduce the salaries of the directors, Nhlapo said.
Numsa handed a memorandum to a representative of the Japanese embassy and said it expected a response in seven days.
The representative, who refused to give his name, said he would reply ”as soon as I hear from Japan”.
The protesters, holding placards and chanting slogans, vowed to return within 14 days if no response was forthcoming.
Nissan SA has reduced its workforce from 7 500 in 1998 to 1 500 workers at present, Numsa said. — Sapa