STATEMENT ON THE OUTCOMES BETWEEN LABOUR AND STEEL INDUSTRY BOSSES
Wednesday 12 August 2015
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) led by its General Secretary cde Irvin Jim, held a bilateral meeting with the Steel industry CEOs and employer bodies, yesterday Tuesday 11 August 2015, in Central Johannesburg, Gauteng province.
The bilateral meeting was an initiative of Numsa jointly with our sister unions in the industry, namely Solidarity and UASA – The Union, amidst the looming jobs loss bloodbath in this strategic sector of our economy. We had called the meeting fully aware that the job loss bloodbath is an attack on the manufacturing base of our economy.
The meeting agreed that these pending job losses are going to have a devastating impact on local communities, approximately close to 75% of working class and poor households in the Vaal and Newcastle areas depends on the steel industry for their survival and livelihoods. Already our ailing economy is bleeding and jobs are being shed on a high scale, whilst those lucky enough to have a job are faced with the socio-economic burden of looking after the large army of the unemployed that is ravaged by squalor and poverty in poor and working class communities and former Bantustan areas.
Whilst the focus is more on the job losses in mines, the truth of the matter is that the looming job losses in the steel industry are going to be far greater.