THE National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has expressed support of the wage demands of workers in the Metal and Engineering Industry Bargaining Council (MEIBC).
Currently, the employers are offering workers 4.1% while workers led by NUMSA are demanding 8%.
“As NUM we strongly believe that a 4.4% increase is not sufficient as it stands if the plight of workers is taken into account,” said the union in a statement n Sunday.
“Workers in this sector have made significant contributions to keep the industry afloat during the Covid-19 pandemic, they have endured wage cuts, short working hours amongst other things.”
“Furthermore, these workers were subjected to a zero wage increase for the year 2020/21. With all these sacrifices by workers on the other hand the employer gained profits during the same period.”
NUM said also rejects the ongoing attack on collective bargain by ‘right-wing’ employer organizations like NEASA.
“These organizations have nothing to offer but are content on liquidating the collective strength of workers to give unchecked power to the bosses.”
NUM is not yet party to the Council (MEIBC) but it has thousands of members in the sector after the extension of its scope and Amalgamation of LIMUSA and therefore has a vested interest in the outcomes of negotiations.
“We have started the process to engage the Council on the requirements to be a party, with very clear objectives to
defend and strengthen collective bargain to improve conditions of our members,” the union said.
“NUM is calling for sanity to prevail on part of the employers in the Engineering sector by improving the current offer that takes the above to account to avert the looming industrial action in the industry.”
Last week, National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), declared a strike action in the engineering sector after employers stuck to their guns on a 4.4% offer while workers, who initially wanted a 15% increase, dropped their demand to 8% during protracted negotiations.
Numsa secretary Irvin Jim announced on Tuesday afternoon that they would embark on a national march where they would hand over a memorandum of demands to all employer associations.
He said the resolution to embark on a national strike was “a product of the protracted negotiations that have taken place where employers have not delivered a meaningful offer, thus frustrating workers in the engineering sector”.
Jim said the union and its members had been very flexible about their demands as they understood that negotiations were a process of give-and-take.
“The initial demand was 15% wage increase across the board. But we have now moved for the sake of settling this round of negotiations. We are calling on and demanding that employers must put on the table an 8% increase across the board for the first year, and CPI + 2% improvement factor for the second and third year,” Jim said.
The Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa), a national employer federation representing the metal and engineering firms, made a proposal of a three-year agreement for a 4.4% increase for the first year.
The federation also offered a CPI plus 0.5% for the second year, and CPI plus 1% for the third year, which the union wants Seifsa to improve.
“We have rejected this offer from Seifsa. We regard it as an insult, especially given the fact that workers in the engineering sector did not get an increase last year,” Jim said.
He said they were calling on all employer associations to act with speed between now and before the day of the national strike, and return to the table if they wanted to avert the strike.
- Inside Politics
