Civil engineering wage talks reach deadlock

9th June 2015

By: Megan van Wyngaardt

Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

  

Font size: - +

The final round of the national wage negotiations for the civil engineering industry has once again reached a deadlock, the Bargaining Council for the Civil Engineering Industry (BCCEI) said on Tuesday.

The wage negotiations started in March and involved five rounds of talks.

Despite the impasse, the parties – the Building, Construction and Allied Workers Union, the National Union of Mineworkers and South African Forum of Civil Engineering Contractors – have indicated their willingness for further discussions.

A final offer had to be submitted to the Department of Labour on June 30, after which the department would have 60 days to consider, approve and promulgate the agreement, plus an additional 21 days for public comment.

The BCCEI noted that some progress had been made in the various rounds of negotiations.

INDUSTRY CHALLENGES
One of the most significant challenges for the civil engineering industry was to determine the number of people it employed. The industry used limited duration contract (LDC) employees, as government stipulated that, with every infrastructure project, contractors had to employ, empower and train locals to do the work.

“It is difficult to quantify the civil engineering industry's contribution to the country's employment rate, [as] prior to the formation of the council in 2012, there had not been an organisation dedicated to monitoring the employment statistics of the industry,” BCCEI general secretary Nick Faasen said in an earlier statement.

He highlighted that the biggest problem facing those who have tried to acquire accurate data on the industry is that nobody knows exactly how big the civil engineering industry is, adding that data from Statistics South Africa was also often outdated and inaccurate.

“With every contract, a contractor has only a limited number of full-time employees, while the majority of workers comprise LDC local employees for either the duration of the project or for as long as their services are required,” he noted.

Edited by Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION