Samancor locks out 300 dismissed workers

SOUTH AFRICA: The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), affiliated at global level to the International Metalworkers' Federation, has protested the laying off and subsequent lockout yesterday, April 24, of 300 of its members at BHP-Billiton's Samancor ferrochrome plant in Witbank, Mpumalanga province. The union accuses the BHP-Billiton subsidiary of "implementing a racially motivated retrenchment policy by only targeting black workers." Numsa has condemned BHP-Billiton - which claims to be under strong pressure to restructure operations and rationalise its workforce - for destroying jobs and not trying to find alternative solutions to retrenchments. Already last year, Samancor, using this rationale, laid off 600 workers. According to the union, the BHP-Billiton group, while making billions of rands in South Africa and across the globe, is throwing workers out of jobs in the name of restructuring, competition, outsourcing and rationalisation. Unemployment in South Africa is estimated at 37 per cent of the total workforce, and 6,000 workers in the country's metal and steel industry have lost their jobs so far this year. "It is precisely as a result of BHP-Billiton why South Africa is sliding into great depression," stated a Numsa spokesman. "The company has contributed to the unemployment crisis, and in this entire situation workers and the union are paying a horrendous price." The union says that BHP-Billiton's action of locking out workers appears to be aimed at eradicating collective bargaining and imposing their will on the workers.