NUMSA MEMBERS TO PICKET AGAINST RACIST AND DASTARDLY LOCK-OUTS BY NEASA'S PAPENFUS COMPANIES

31 July 2014

Members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) in the Western Cape will hold various pickets and demonstrations in companies that have taken anillegal, racist and provocative decision to lock-out workers, after the union signed a groundbreaking three-year collective bargaining agreement with employer body Seifsa. The three-year bargaining agreement led to the end of our four-week long strike in the Metals/Engineering sector.

The self-anointed puppet and rented agent of the DA and Market Foundation (MFM) Gerhard Papenfus, NEASA's Chief Executive, called on NEASA's member companies to illegally lock-out our members and bar them from reporting to work. The workers arereturning to work after the union called-off the strike, immediately after signing the agreement under the watchful eye of the Metal and Engineering Industry Bargaining Council.

We view the lock-out not only as an attack to collective bargaining, but as a deliberate agenda by Papenfus and ilk, wanting to retain and reproduce colonial apartheid poverty wages, mostly amongst Black and African workers, amidst the triple crisis of poverty, unemployment and deepening inequality in our country.

The details of the picket or demonstration are as follows:

DATE: Friday 1 August 2014

TIME: 09H00am

VENUE: Magnador, Peter Bressler and Associates T/A Magnador, 12th Str, Elsies River, Cape Town

Members of the media are hereby invited to attend and report.

Statement issued by Vuyo Lufele, NUMSA Regional Secretary, July 31 2014

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