NUMSA RESPONSE TO NEASA
Wednesday 14 January 2014
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) notes the ghastly claims by the National Employers' Association of South Africa's (NEASA) that we have capitulated to their 2014 wage demands. This is a gross misrepresentation and deliberate distortion of facts. NUMSA has not capitulated to NEASA's demands.
The demands, which NEASA claims we had agreed to, are the following;
(1) A 7% across the board wage increase; AND
(2) A 50% reduction of the entry level wage (for new employees) in respect of the three lowest wage categories.
According to NEASA's CE Gerhard Papenfus "The Metal Industry finds itself in an unprecedented bizarre situation:NUMSA capitulates to NEASA's 2014 demands but then attempts to enforce an Industry destructive agreement with the federation Seifsa on the other 85% of the Metal Industry, including NEASA, through the Minister of Labour and the utilization of an undemocratic provision in the Labour Relations Act, which completely negates the interests of the overwhelming majority of employers, mainly SMME's".
The above poisonous statement by Papenfus is a violent attack on the Collective Bargaining dispensation, fought and won by workers through their blood, sweat and tears and through mass action on the streets. The statement further reinforces our beliefs that NEASA, an apartheid wage slave-driver and class collaborator of the Free Market Foundation (FMF) wants to retain and reproduce apartheid income inequalities we inherited from our apartheid and colonial economic structure, where Blacks in general and Africans in particular, are subjected to the most inferior poverty wages.
As NUMSA, we want to state categorically that we have not capitulated or conceded to any demands by NEASA, in relation to the 2014 collective bargaining wage agreement. What we have been doing consistently in the interests of our members and in defense of our hard won collective bargaining dispensation, is our continuous fight against the lock-out of our members by NEASA-member employers.
The lock-out by NEASA was a backlash and retaliation on our collective bargaining victories we scored in the Metal and Engineering sector, which were won through an overwhelming and successful four (4)-week's long strike.
NEASA's lock-out has spectacularly failed to undermine the many advances we continue to make in the interests of our members. Hence, we are not deterred by the false propaganda being championed by Papenfus, to poison the minds of our members and the public.
Currently, a small fraction of our members, are still being locked-out by NEASA-member employers, but a significant number of our members previously locked-out have returned to work. We want to send a strong message to the employers that are still lock-outing our members: to allow our members back without any conditions, failure to adhere to this demand, we will be left with no option, but to fight these lock-outs in the streets, and halt production until all our members have returned to work.
Lastly, we welcome the fact that the Minister of Labour Ms Mildred Oliphant has signed and extended the Main Agreement to non-parties, effective from 5 January 2015. We expect NEASA to comply and honour the Main Agreement, as gazetted by the Minister of Labour.
Statement issued by Castro Ngobese, NUMSA National Spokesperson, January 14 2015
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