The MEIBC's deceptive wage offer is bad news for skilled and experienced employees
25 April 2024
Representatives from the metal and engineering industries convened for the important second round of wage negotiations in Boksburg on 24 April 2024 under the auspices of the Metal and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council (MEIBC).
The current three-year agreement expires on 30 June 2024.
The deceptive wage offer presented by the various employer organisations ranges between 6% for the lowest level employees and 5% for skilled employees, but the offer is tied to the minimum rates of pay per job category, and not based on the actual wages earned by employees, a stance which Solidarity has rejected outright.
Solidarity General Secretary Gideon du Plessis has argued that to base increases on minimum rates of pay would result in the skilled and experienced employees receiving an increase well below the Consumer Price Index (CPI), whereas entry level employees would receive above CPI increases, an offer which does not only have ethical implications, but places the industry at risk of exacerbating a talent drain of scarce skills.
The metal and engineering sectors operate under a collective bargaining agreement which includes technical schedules defining minimum wage rates across various occupations. This framework ranges from highly skilled artisans (Grade A) to unskilled workers (Grade H).
During the post-Covid-19 period from 2021 to 2024 compromises were made to facilitate industry recovery, in terms of which trade unions agreed that increases were to be based on minimum rates of pay rather than actual rates of pay for this period only.
This compromise resulted in skilled and experienced employees receiving increases of 3% or less over the three year period, when the average CPI was close to 6% for the same period.
Du Plessis emphasised that this approach, while necessary at the time, cannot be sustained beyond 2024 without compromising skilled workers' financial well-being.
To illustrate the implications of this scenario, one can refer to the fact that the actual pay rate for a Grade A artisan is on average R200 per hour, while the prevailing collective agreement mandates a minimum pay rate of R98,11 for entry level artisans. The 5% increase is then based on the minimum rates, and as a result, the entry level artisan will receive the 5% increase that relates to an increase of R4,91 per hour, whilst the top level artisan's real wage increase amounts to only 2,4% based on the R4,91 per hour increase.
The compounding effect of this arrangement is unsustainable both at an individual level and at an industry level.
Solidarity, therefore, firmly opposes the continuation of basing increases on the minimum wage rates to the detriment of employees possessing scarce skills.
Du Plessis pressed the employer organisations to review their wage increase offer and base it on the actual wage rates as was the case until 2021 and to not further disadvantage skilled employees.
Issued by Gideon du Plessis, General Secretary Solidarity, 25 April 2024
