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Johannesburg. – The South African union leading a walkout by 220000 metalworkers is close to an agreement with employers on wage increases and will resume talks to end a week long strike, the Labour Ministry said. Government officials met separately with the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and employers yesterday, Mokgadi Pela, a spokesman for the labour department said.
The department will continue talks with Numsa today on unresolved issues, including the union’s demand to ban companies that provide temporary workers, known as labour brokers.
“Talks are at a very advanced and sensitive stage,” Pela said.
“We are close to an agreement when it comes to wage percentages but the reason we are saying talks are at a sensitive stage is we are trying to address sticky issues,” including labour brokers, youth wage subsidies and housing allowances, he said.
Numsa last week rejected an improved offer from the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa, the main employers’ group, to increase the salaries of lowest-paid workers by 10 percent this year. Numsa is demanding a 12 percent raise.
It’s the government “who convened the meeting,” Numsa’s National Treasurer Mphumzi Maqungo said by mobile phone.
“They said they want to meet with us, so we have not refused to meet. Whoever wants to resolve the strike, we will listen to them.”
The strike that began on July 1 has been marred by violence and threatens about a third of South African manufacturing output.
General Motors Co halted production because of a disruption of auto-component supplies, while Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s South African unit restarted production at a slower rate after bringing forward a week of maintenance at its plant in Pretoria.
“We are working on a contingency plan as best we can that keeps us actually working,” Guy Kilfoil, a spokesman for BMW in South Africa, said.
“It also relies on other contingency plans to work, things like suppliers’ contingencies to get us certain parts, because some of the parts we just can’t stockpile.”
Moody’s Investors Service said the nation’s credit rating may be at risk because of the walkout, which follows a five-month platinum mining strike that caused the economy to contract in the first quarter. – Bloomberg.
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