Reprieve for 125 Conti workers

THE Port Elizabeth Labour Court has ordered Continental Tyres SA to put on hold a retrenchment process that will see 125 workers lose their jobs.

This follows a successful urgent application by trade union Solidarity to get the company to hold off on the retrenchments until they have fully consulted with the union.

Solidarity head: labour court division Anton van der Bijl said the union was successful in its application because the company did not follow the correct retrenchment procedure.

"The retrenchments have been stopped indefinitely until such time as the retrenchment procedure can be corrected," he said.

Continental did not respond to media queries by the time of going to print.

Van der Bijl said the court also ordered Continental to pay the costs of the application.

Of the 125 workers affected by the retrenchments, only about four weremembers of Solidarity, he said.

However, the jobs of non-union workers as well as members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), who worked a fifth shift at Continental, would all be safe following yesterday's ruling.

Numsa regional secretary Phumzile Nodongwe said the union would welcome any agreement where jobs could be retained, but as he understood it the interdict just put the retrenchment process temporarily on hold.

Nodongwe said if there were Numsa members who were old and wanted to leave it would be good for them to continue negotiations with the company.

Last month, Continental announced it was forced to cut the fifth shift after a month-long Numsa strike over matters arising from a weekend- pay dispute.

The five-shift system was changed to a four-shift model, which was implemented with immediate effect early last month.

The new model allowed for weekend shift workers to be paid time- and-a-half for Saturdays and double time for Sundays.

As a consequence of agreeing to this Numsa demand, the company had to reduce the number of workers. - Cindy Preller