More than 31,000 members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) began an indefinite strike on Wednesday after two months of pay negotiations stalled. The union has rejected the offer of a 7% rise in the first year followed by increases in line with inflation and is demanding a one-year inflation-busting 15% increase; inflation in South Africa was 4.2% last month.
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“We are having demonstrations at plant levels in the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal,” union spokesman Castro Ngobese said.
“The employers should come on board because we have been negotiating with them for a period of more than two months now. Nothing has come out concretely out of those negotiations,” added Ngobese.
The employers are represented by the Automobile Manufacturers Employers Organisation industry group which includes BMW, Daimler, Ford, GM, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen.
BMW said its plant will stay closed until the strike is over. “There is no way we can build cars without workers. There is no contingency plan in place,” BMW spokesman Guy Kilfoil said, adding that he hoped the strike would be resolved soon through the employers’ trade association.
About 6,000 workers in tyre manufacturing are not going to strike, however.
Motor vehicle production in South Africa was expected to reach 443,000 units in 2010 compared with 374,000 last year, according to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
