Evan Vitale Consulting: Employers to meet after consulting constituencies

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EMPLOYERS in the reeling metal and engineering sectors will meet on Monday evening after unions on Sunday submitted a combined proposal demand, in another week of strike action by South Africa’s largest union, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa).

The Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) will meet the National Employers Association of South Africa (Neasa) on Monday evening in an “off-the-record meeting” after consulting their respective constituencies.

Unions, including Numsa and Solidarity, met on Sunday and submitted a combined proposal of a 10% increase over three years in one category and 8% for artisans.

However, Neasa maintains that its constituency’s mandate in negotiations remains the same, saying that an offer proposal from the Department of Labour’s task team was “out of reach” for the 3,000 small business it represents.

Following Monday night’s meeting negotiations will convene on Tuesday.

The strike has already dealt a blow to the operations of car makers. General Motors has shut a production line in Port Elizabeth and BMW South Africa has cut its production by a third since the strike began.

Neasa subsequently said it would institute a legal challenge to the extension of any agreement Seifsa entered into with Numsa without Neasa’s acceptance.

Seifsa says that the strike, which is entering its fourth week, is costing South Africa R300m a day in lost revenue.

Seifsa operations director Lucio Trentini said that following talks at the weekend employer bodies would meet on Monday evening after reverting to their constituencies to seek a fresh mandate, talks would reconvene on Tuesday.

“That is a bilateral, informal off-the-record meeting and is an opportunity for Seifsa to communicate the outcomes of their consultation … ahead of the proposal we will table at the reconvening,” Mr Trentini said.

Mr Trentini said Seifsa would also rely on the inputs from at task team appointed by Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant, which included senior officials from the department and a senior commissioner from the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.

Neasa CEO Gerhard Papenfus said Ms Oliphant’s task team made proposals on Saturday aimed at resolving the strike, but the dynamics for small business remained “complicated”.

“The proposal they made to resolve the strike in terms of cost to employers is just out of our reach. The result of this strike will be devastating…. We have one side that may want to take an agreement just to end the strike but while that may lead to an end, will also inevitably lead to job losses,” Mr Papenfus said.

Numsa secretary-general Irvin Jim said the union would wait for employer bodies to “consider their penetrations” before negotiations continued on Tuesday. However, he said companies represented by Neasa had the option of being made exempt from agreement stipulations they could not afford.

“We are consistently maintaining that Neasa is busy with the propaganda. If indeed there are companies who can’t afford, there is an exemption rule where they can show their books and be made exempt,” Mr Jim said.

Solidarity spokesman Marius Croucamp said the unions were confident that the latest proposal from unions could end the strike.

South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Neren Rau said the chamber’s research into industrial action of this nature found work stoppage, violence and intimidation had a much more severe effect on smaller businesses.

Economist Dawie Roodt said for every month that the strike continued the economy would lose 0.3% of its growth. “If this goes on for five months, I am afraid the impact will be huge and the economy will be in nosedive,” Mr Roodt said.