The National Employers’ Association of South Africa (Neasa) on Friday filed a second application in the Labour Court to review and set aside an April 12 decision by Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant to extend the terms of a collective bargaining agreement to nonparties in the metals industry.
This followed a decision by the Labour Court in December to set aside a decision by Oliphant in September 2011, which extended a collective bargaining agreement in the metals industry to nonparties.
In terms of the application to the Labour Court, Oliphant had ten days to submit the record of all documents that informed her decision.
The organisation, led by CEO Gerhard Papenfus, said in a statement on Monday that it viewed the extension of the agreement by the Minister to nonparties as “unlawful, unreasonable and procedurally unfair”, as the parties that signed the agreement represented less than 25% of the entire worker base.
He claimed that the Minister had also relied on a purported agreement that was not subjected to the Metal and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council’s constitutional structures, which Neasa believed was “illegal and unconstitutional and would render this agreement null and void”.