Small businesses must be protected from big unions
30 June 2014
The DA will write to the Minister of Small Business Development, Lindiwe Zulu, requesting she advocate for the exclusion of small and medium business enterprises from collective bargaining agreements which they are not signatories to through amendments to the Labour Relations Amendment Act.
This follows on-going strike action within the metal and engineering sector post the signing of an agreement between major workers' union NUMSA and major employers' association, Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa (SEIFSA) - bringing a partial end to a 4 week long strike in the metal and engineering sector.
Sustained strike action within the sector comes as a result of continued haggling over wage disputes between NUMSA and the smaller employers' association - representing 3000 small and medium size businesses - the National Employers' Association of South Africa (NEASA).
NEASA, which is currently not bound to the terms of the NUMSA-SEIFSA agreement, has threatened to challenge the agreement should it be formally gazetted by the Department of Labour, thus extending the wage-settlement agreement to non-signatories within the sector.