Hopes for end to South African vehicle strike

Car manufacturers believe most production can restart this week after waves of component manufacturing workers went on strike, adding to earlier stoppages that dragged down exports by 75% last month.

The Retail Motor Industry Organisation, which represents component producers, is offering a 10% pay hike this year and eight percent annually the next two years, though workers at some plants have rejected the deal.

The current industrial action has affected seven plants of major car manufacturers including Volkswagen, Ford, Mercedes, Toyota, and General Motors in a sector which contributes six percent to the economy.

"The signs are reasonably positive," Nico Vermeulen, executive director of the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) told AFP.

"Hopefully by Friday (4 October) or Monday (7 October) the production will resume in the motor components industry," Vermeulen said after a meeting with workers, owners and the minister of transport.

Numsa pushing to end strike

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), the industry's dominant labour group, said it would put the increase to members on Wednesday (3 October) and was pushing for the deal to go through.

But there were objections to a "peace clause" that would forbid workers from downing tools in the next three years.

"We need to persuade our members to accept the offer, but the workers do not want the peace clause included in the agreement," said Numsa regional secretary Phumzile Nodongwe.

Strikers at plants in Pretoria, Durban and East London favour the offer.

But a minority are holding out in coastal city Port Elizabeth, where Volkswagen, General Motors and Ford have operations.

The 78,000 component labourers downed tools more than six weeks ago demanding higher pay, just as car construction workers ended their strike.

Car exports dropped by three quarters in September compared with last year's figures after the twin strikes.

Nedbank analysts said on Wednesday (2 October) the current stoppages would likely break exports in coming months as well.

"Manufacturers can programme and plan to recover some of that lost production, through overtime and Saturday work, but the problem is also the longer the strike goes on, the more difficult it becomes to recover," said Naamsa's Vermeulen.

The strikes follow stoppages in mining and construction as competing unions in the mining sector make increasingly radical demands.

Source: AFP via I-Net Bridge