Fears over looming metalworkers' strike

A NEW labour strike is looming at a time when South Africa can least afford it. Up to 200000 workers in the metal and engineering sector could down tools after wage talks deadlocked.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) confirmed yesterday that while it was still in talks with three employer organisations – representing about 12500 employers, including international appliance manufacturer Defy – a national strike was set for July 4.

There is concern that the country cannot shoulder another strike in light of the crippling platinum industrial action, which began in January and is now South African mining's longest strike in history.

Labour-employer relations in South Africa have never been more strained and it does not help that the World Economic Forum ranked South Africa last in a survey of 148 countries relating to this issue.

While the rest of the world is recovering from a recession, South Africa's economy is in dire straits. Numsa deputy general secretary Karl Cloete said 174000 of the 200000 union members in the industry belonged to Numsa.

Members are demanding a 15% increase but employers are offering 6.1%. On Thursday, unions including Numsa and the United Association of South Africa declared a dispute.

"We are going into further talks with the employers. Through general meetings we are communicating with members to receive the necessary mandate.

"But membership made it clear that where the employers are coming from, they can see nothing else but forcing the employers, through strike action, to concede," Cloete said.

Stats SA said last week the gross domestic product for the first quarter of the year declined by 0.6% at a quarter- on-quarter annualised rate for the first time in five years.

"At a time when the rest of the world is coming out of recession and trying to grow ... we are going the other way," Sasfin Securities deputy chairman David Shapiro said."Regardless of whether the metalworkers go on strike, we should be panicking." - Nashira Davids