Numsa plans national vehicle industry strike

More than 31‚000 workers are expected to down tools in Africa's largest car manufacturing nation‚ which is a major exporter of cars and also produces a range of commercial vehicles.

The strike is expected to hit plants at Toyota‚ Nissan‚ Ford‚ GM‚ Volkswagen‚ Mercedes-Benz and BMW‚ and some truck manufacturers.

"The national executive committee will formalise the strike notice tomorrow (Thursday 15 August) for the start of a national strike on next Monday‚ (19 August)" said Alex Mashilo‚ chief negotiator for the vehicle sector of Numsa.

"The industry had already reached deadlock on 19 July and subsequent meetings had failed‚" Mashilo said.

Negotiations started with Numsa demanding wage increases of 20% across the board‚ but these had been whittled down to 14%. The companies were now offering 10% plus a R1.07 increase per hour for the first year and consumer price index (CPI) inflation plus 0.25% and R1.07 per hour for each of the following two years.

Wage increases not high enough

Mashilo said workers had noticed a trend where wage increases in subsequent years were always lower than in the first year but they wanted at least the same each year.

"On principle‚ workers will not accept a less than double-digit increase‚" he said

He said workers in the vehicle industry could not afford housing and did not qualify for either low-income RDP houses or home ownership bonds from commercial lenders.

In addition‚ the cost of transport‚ electricity and food had soared in recent years. "The basket that workers are buying from is always above average inflation. It must be relevant to workers‚" Mashilo said.

This comment referred to what was counted as part of SA's inflation basket and what was left out.

A separate strike was already in progress at BMW's plant near Pretoria‚ where more than 2‚000 workers had downed tools. Mashilo said this was an in-house strike‚ as certain aspects of working conditions remained at company level. But he said the BMW workers also belonged to Numsa and were part of the broader negotiating process.

BMW SA spokesman‚ Guy Kilfoil‚ said the strike started last Thursday (8 August) and was likely to lead to loss of production of nearly 1‚700 3-Series sedans as at the end of Wednesday's shift (14 August).

"All of those cars need to be re-allocated to other plants around the world and obviously this affects our reputation with customers quite badly‚" Kilfoil said.

Thapelo Molapo‚ chief negotiator of the Automobile Manufacturers Employers Organisation‚ said the negotiating goalposts were changing all the time.

"It is work in progress and changes as we go‚" he said. But he said formal negotiations had now been finished and that Numsa was able to issue a 48-hour strike notice‚ although the parties were "continuing to engage".

"There is pressure on both parties to take the urgency of the negotiations more seriously‚" he said.