Last attempt to avert NUMSA strike fails, union “going for Eskom”

By Ed Cropley

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – More than 220,000 members of South Africa's NUMSA engineering and metalworkers union will down tools on July 1 after last-ditch wage talks to avert a strike failed, its leaders said on Sunday.

Irvin Jim, Secretary General of South Africa's largest union, said NUMSA members would also picket the headquarters of state power utility Eskom on July 2 as part of a push for a wage increase of 12 percent, nearly twice the current inflation rate.

Eskom, which produces nearly all the electricity in Africa's most advanced economy, is defined as an "essential service", making strikes by its workers illegal.

However, Jim told a news conference that if the union did not get its demands, NUMSA might be left with "no option but to allow our members to liberate themselves".

"We are going for Eskom. There's no two ways about it," he said. "We are doing a picketing. It's a build-up."

South Africa is still reeling from a five-month strike in the platinum mines that ended with a wage settlement last week, but not before dragging the economy into contraction in the first three months of the year.

The latest strike is likely to hit engineering firms such as Bell Equipment and industrial group Dorbyl, but the big fear is that a prolonged stoppage in car component factories could affect the important automotive sector.

A four-week strike in 2013 by more than 30,000 NUMSA members at major auto makers cost the industry around $2 billion.The government has been trying to prevent any more damage to the economy. But its ability to sway NUMSA is limited after the union – once a political ally of the ruling African National Congress – fell out with the party last year because of policy disagreements.

NUMSA is South Africa's largest union with around 340,000 members, although only around two-thirds of these are planning to go on strike.

It has nearly 10,000 workers at Eskom, and if they down tools it could hamper the utility's ability to keep the lights on, already a daily battle because of razor-thin margins between power supply and demand.

By Nosihle Shelembe of the SA Press Association:

More than 220,000 Numsa members in the steel and metal workers sector will embark on a strike across the country this week, the union said on Sunday.

"The national executive committee has agreed to the decision from our members to embark on an indefinite strike action, beginning on July 1," said Irvin Jim, general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of SA.

The union was demanding a 12 percent salary increase, the scrapping of labour brokers and a one-year bargaining agreement.

Jim told a media briefing in Newton, Johannesburg, that the planned strike followed a series of negotiations with bosses who remained stubborn and intransigent.

"This was not an easy decision but a painful one, since the principle of no work no pay will be applied by the intransigent bosses," he said.

Jim said the strike was a campaign for a living minimum wage for the workers.

"When the economy is bad the bosses make money, when the economy is good the bosses make money," he said.

Jim said workers were victims when the economy was bad because employers retrenched workers and restructured production.

Numsa members at Eskom would also picket on July 2 at the Eskom head office demanding an increase of 12 percent across the board.

The union was seeking a R1000 housing allowance and a standby allowance of R100.

"Numsa members in Eskom are not deterred by the essential service designation because management should have a long time ago put in place a minimum service agreement.

"Public utilities continue to be places where top management enrich themselves at the expense of quality service delivery and the improvement of working conditions," Jim said.

He called on the leadership of government and Eskom to move decisively and make an offer that would address the plight of the workers.

Numsa would not take responsibility "for the lights being off".

Numsa members remained resolute and would mobilise to get what they wanted, Jim said.