Numerous metal and engineering employers have concluded agreements with trade unions that entail additional increases for skilled employees, Solidarity announced on Tuesday.
Cape Gate has offered a 15% increase for artisans and 20% for technicians.
Barloworld has offered a 10% increase plus a R1 500 skills allowance and Stainless Fabricators have offered an additional 12% increase, bringing the total increase to 20%, said Solidarity spokesperson Jaco Kleynhans in a statement released on Tuesday.
Kleynhans said talks on additional increases for skilled workers were in progress with at least another six large employers in the sector.
He said that many employers outside the metal and engineering sector, including Sasol, Kumba Resources and Murray & Roberts Cementation, were also making special offers to skilled employees.
Deputy general secretary of Solidarity, Dirk Hermann, said a current skills shortage in South Africa meant skills were more expensive.
”The number of artisans in South Africa is currently around 10% of what it was 20 years ago and our country needs almost twice as many artisans as the available number. South Africa has one engineer for every 3 200 citizens, while there is one engineer for every 150 people in countries like India and China and on engineer for every 250 to 300 people in Europe.
”Artisans in Australia earn approximately three times more than their South African counterparts and South Africa loses trained artisans to foreign countries every day. If South African companies do not adjust the salary packages of these people, they will seek greener pastures abroad,” he said.
Solidarity, along with Numsa, the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers’ Union, the Metal and Electrical Workers’ Union of South Africa, the Mineworkers’ Union and the South African Equity Workers’ Association all embarked on strike action on Monday following a breakdown in wage negotiations last weekend.
Negotiation talks between the unions and the Steel and Engineering Industry Federation of South Africa (Seifsa) are under way in Johannesburg on Tuesday. – Sapa