The National Employers’ Association of South Africa (Neasa) has confirmed it will pursue all possible legal means to halt the extension of the Metals and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council’s (MEIBC’s) Main Agreement to nonparties.

CEO Gerhard Papenfus says the association is resolute to take the matter further and will submit an application to the Labour Appeal Court of South Africa in the coming weeks.

Papenfus tells Engineering News that Neasa will pursue the matter through to the Constitutional Court if necessary.

This follows after the Labour Court on September 28 denied Neasa and South African Engineers and Founders Association’s (Saefa’s) leave to appeal a ruling made on August 31, which dismissed the parties’ application to halt the extension of the Main Agreement to nonparties.

Judge Sean Snyman on both occasions struck down Neasa’s applications in its entirety and ordered it to pay the respondents’ costs.

Snyman in his initial judgment pointed to Neasa’s consistent efforts since 2014 to scupper any attempt to extend the Main Agreement of the MEIBC to nonparties, which the judge believes has led to constant destabilisation of the industry.

In his second judgment on the appeal application, Snyman said the applicants appear to be incapable of looking beyond the interest of their individual members and to the benefit of the industry as whole. He said he was confident the case has no prospect of success in another court.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has, meanwhile,  welcomed the Labour Court’s latest decision, saying Neasa and Saefa are the only parties out of 19 who are unwilling to sign the Main Agreement, and are trying to impose their will as a minority onto the majority – and using the courts to do so.

Numsa, as well as other organisations, are awaiting the Department of Employment and Labour’s gazetting of the Main Agreement and its extension to nonparties, including details on the minimum rates that employers have to pay employees and other minimum working conditions that have to be met in the metals and engineering industry.  

The Main Agreement allows for companies to apply for a phase-in exemption, which involves them paying 60% of the 2020 rate, which amounts to R29.73 an hour, or about R5 000 a month, to all general labourers by June 30, 2024.

This exemption, however, is not a blanket exemption and companies need to prove financial difficulties on a yearly basis to apply for the exemption which may then be granted by the relevant regional council.

Neasa has indicated it will move to have Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi’s decision set aside, in a separate legal process, should he decide to extend the Main Agreement to nonparties.

The Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa said in a briefing on September 5 that centralised, collective bargaining was the way forward, especially if it ushered in an atmosphere of industrial peace and stability in the industry.

CEO Lucio Trentini at the time noted that Neasa and Saefa represent only 25% of employees affiliated with employer organisations on the bargaining council, and that resorting to litigation was not only futile, time-consuming and costly, but also did little to create an enabling environment with labour and to deal with real conversations about what stakeholders could be doing to tackle unemployment and poverty.

Papenfus points out that Neasa and Saefa collectively represent almost double the number of employers that Seifsa represents, with Seifsa accounting for 10% of employers in the collective bargaining system. 

Labour unions UASA operational manager Rick Grobler, Metal and Electrical Workers' Union of South Africa deputy general secretary Peter Madigoe and South African Equity Workers Association national coordinator Trevor Lejoane all agreed with Trentini on September 5 that competitiveness should be balanced with socioeconomic needs, and that central bargaining ensured that no employee was extorted or abused.

Neasa maintains its advocation for every employer to decide the wage level of its staff, based on its own operational needs. It says few companies can afford a cost-to-company minimum wage of R78 an hour, for example, and that this will cause a jobs bloodbath in the industry.