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18 October, 1999Lack of vision and greed by employers plus lack of industrial strategy by government is to blame for heavy job losses.
SOUTH AFRICA: Workers in the South African metal industry are planning mass action in the coming weeks to protest the disappearance of 6,000 jobs this month alone.
The president of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, Mthuthuzeli Tom, told the media that this action -- just short of an all-out strike - will involve pickets, work stoppages and lunch-hour protests. The union will be targeting the 11 sectors of the metal industry, including engineering, where 2,300 jobs are to be shed. The arms manufacturer, Denel, came in for especially strong criticism because the company plans to close down three operations in the coming two weeks and layoff 900 workers.
The NUMSA president said that the government could not continue talking about creating jobs when there was no strategy to protect existing ones, no industrial strategy policy. That combined with employers' lack of vision and greed for profits was to blame for the situation. He said that the union would push for linking tariff reductions on imports to policy so that their implementation and impact could be controlled. Also, NUMSA would support the call by COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) that the government amend the Labour Relations Act to make retrenchment a compulsory negotiating matter.
Source: Business Day, South Africa
The president of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, Mthuthuzeli Tom, told the media that this action -- just short of an all-out strike - will involve pickets, work stoppages and lunch-hour protests. The union will be targeting the 11 sectors of the metal industry, including engineering, where 2,300 jobs are to be shed. The arms manufacturer, Denel, came in for especially strong criticism because the company plans to close down three operations in the coming two weeks and layoff 900 workers.
The NUMSA president said that the government could not continue talking about creating jobs when there was no strategy to protect existing ones, no industrial strategy policy. That combined with employers' lack of vision and greed for profits was to blame for the situation. He said that the union would push for linking tariff reductions on imports to policy so that their implementation and impact could be controlled. Also, NUMSA would support the call by COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) that the government amend the Labour Relations Act to make retrenchment a compulsory negotiating matter.
Source: Business Day, South Africa