Strikes at 2010 World Cup stadiums will continue countrywide on Thursday as opposing parties prepare for another round of wage talks.
”The strike will enter its second day … and workers have shown the willingness and resilience to continue until employers offer the required 13%,” said National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) negotiator Bhekani Ngcobo.
The striking construction workers will hand a memorandum to the CEO of the 2010 local organising committee (LOC) on Thursday.
”Workers are gathered at 2010 sites for the second day [of strike action], and those gathered at Soccer City will hand a memorandum to Irvin Khoza of the LOC,” NUM spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka said.
”The strike is going as planned, everything is in order,” he added.
Seshoka said the NUM had no evidence of the use of casual workers at any of the construction sites where employees were on strike.
”But we’ll cross the bridge when we come to it on this one … any casual worker who goes to work while we’re on strike is an ingundwane [scab labourer].
”We know how to deal with the ingundwane,” he added.
A meeting is to be held on Thursday — involving the NUM, the South African Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors (Safcec), the 2010 LOC and the Department of Labour — to discuss ways of ending the strike between.
”The meeting was called by the minister of labour [Membathisi Mdladlana], and he’s a good guy when it comes to issues of labour.
”And the LOC are good guys … the real problem is Safcec,” Seshoka said.
Meanwhile, Khoza told SABC news that the LOC had made a commitment to Fifa and the world that the stadiums would be ready six months before the start of the 2010 World Cup.
”We are fortunate … that the minister of labour has asked all stakeholders to meet this morning [Thursday] … so that we can debate issues of concern,” he said.
The NUM’s members are demanding a 13% wage increase while Safcec had offered 10,4%.
Warning
The NUM has also warned other employers to avoid confrontation in wage negotiations.
”We call on other employers in the mining and energy sectors to be careful how they negotiate and what they bring to the table this year so as to avoid unnecessary confrontation,” the union said in a statement late on Wednesday.
The union has said 70 000 workers are affected by the current construction strike, which threatens to delay completion of the soccer stadiums. Officials have said the 10 World Cup stadiums, half of them new, will be completed by December.
The increasing voice of trade unions is a challenge for President Jacob Zuma, who has to balance union demands for pro-poor policies with market-friendly policies that have helped South Africa gain investor confidence.
Only its construction workers have been on strike so far, however, and there has been no impact on mining in South Africa, the world’s top producer of platinum and a big gold miner. — Sapa, Reuters