Crunch talks between South African metalworker unions and employers are due to take place in Pretoria next week against a context of significant labour unrest.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) is submitting a 22% pay demand to the Automobile Manufacturers Employers Organisation (AMEO), with the request coming hot on the heels of a mass walkout at Mercedes-Benz in South Africa that saw 6,000 workers down tools.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
The pay talks are unconnected with that dispute, but the strike is symptomatic of fraught industrial relations in South Africa that resulted in extreme violence at the country’s mines last year which left scores dead and yet more rubber bullets being fired this week against protesters.
“We are asking for 22%, we think employers will come to the party and put enough on the table,” NUMSA president, Cedric Gina, told just-auto from South Africa. “Although this is a demand, we are also into negotiations.
“If employers become reasonable, we will take things from there. Our call [to] them is they must come to the party – they must be reasonable.”
The issue now goes before the National Bargaining Forum in South Africa, with any decision reached binding, according to NUMSA, who are negotiating on behalf of 30,000 auto workers.
AMEO says it has not yet started on the “real crux” of substantive talks – these will begin next week in the South African capital with the process taking several weeks.
“Yes, we are optimistic,” AMEO chairman, Thapelo Molapo, told just-auto from Pretoria. “The beginning of any negotiation is always full of expectation and drama – we have done this many times and I am not too worried.
“The riots we have seen in the mining sector – I am optimistic we will do much better. What we have seen in the mining sector…is unprecedented and tragic and is not how we must handle labour relations.”
The auto industry in South Africa had been at the “forefront of collective bargaining” added Malapo.
A National Bargaining Forum spokeswoman told just-auto there could be anywhere between eight to twelve representatives from AMEO and up to 50 from NUMSA at the negotiations.
