/ 16 July 2009

Construction industry wage agreement signed

A wage agreement was signed on Wednesday afternoon signalling the official end to a strike over pay at 2010 Soccer World Cup stadiums.

”It has been signed,” South African Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors (Safcec) spokesperson Schalk Ackerman said shortly after 5.30pm.

He said the mood was ”quite jubilant from the workforce.”

Safcec was ”satisfied” with the agreement, he said.

The signing of the agreement at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration’s Johannesburg offices was delayed for more than four hours.

Earlier an official, who could not be named, told journalists that language, grammatical and literacy problems had been at the centre of the delay.

An agreement was reached in the early hours of Wednesday morning for a 12% wage increase, ending the week-long strike at World Cup construction sites around the country.

About 70 000 workers from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Building, Construction and Allied Workers’ Union (BCAWU) downed tools during the strike in the construction industry. — Sapa