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14 January, 2008
During the July-August 2007 sector-wide tyre strike by 6,000 members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), 150 contract workers defied bosses at one of the producers – Goodyear – and joined NUMSA on picket lines. The ICEM-affiliated union then successfully defended the contract workers in court cases, while their rights after the American company challenged their right to strike.
Those 150 contract workers have been rewarded for making their stand during that strike. As a result of language won by NUMSA regarding labour brokers, the contract workers are now former contract workers, as of this year. That means they have job security, medical assistance, and they are covered by the Tyre Industry’s Provident Fund.
And they are also full-fledged union members of NUMSA.
Contract workers at Goodyear’s 800-worker Uitenhage tyre-making plant near Port Elizabeth have pressed hard for entitlement to legitimate job rights. In April 2006, a strike by 300 contract workers was narrowly averted when NUMSA members at the auto, truck, industrial tyre plant threatened to join the strike. They won concessions from Goodyear and contract employers then.
NUMSA News, the union’s monthly journal, credits the contract workers for “their discipline over the last five years and the fact that they have appreciated all efforts that NUMSA undertook for them.”
The NUMSA industry-wide strike last year achieved first-year wage gains of 8%, and 7.5% for both the second and third years. Contract workers employed by Goodyear’s labour brokers took keen interest to know that NUMSA also won skill-based development training, five months maternity leave, 15-day annual leave, and a 10.5% contribution increase by employers to the Provident Fund.
NUMSA also reports that 21 contract workers at Dunlop-Apollo Tyre’s production plant in Durban – another plant struck last year – won permanent job rights, effective early in 2008. The ICEM commends NUMSA for these important achievements, as well as salutes contract workers in South Africa’s rubber industry for standing up to assert their rights.