The Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) would not get back to the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) with a new wage offer, as the organisation has exhausted its mandate, CEO Kaizer Nyatsumba asserted on Tuesday.
This followed after the union, on Sunday, rejected Seifsa’s latest offer of a 10% wage increase for 2014, followed by increases of 9.5% and 9% in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
Numsa said in a statement on Monday that, following a meeting between the union and Seifsa, the federation had made an undertaking to go back to its council for a mandate.
However, Nyatsumba denied that Seifsa would get back to the union with a new offer or about any other matters, including plant-level negotiations and labour broking.
“We have not promised Numsa to get back to it with a new offer. Instead, we made it clear that we have exhausted our mandate. We also explained during our meeting with Numsa leadership yesterday morning, that the final offer made last week – which was intended to end the strike and to see employees back at work this week – failed to accomplish its goal and has since been withdrawn,” Nyatsumba said.
Therefore, the current offer was, once again, for a 10% increase in 2014, followed by increases of 9% for 2015 and 2016, while for higher earning artisans, the offer remained 8% in 2014, 7.5% in 2015 and 7% in 2016, Seifsa stated.
On the issue of plant-level negotiations and labour broking, Nyatsumba said the federation had made a number of important concessions in these negotiations, but its positions on both matters had not changed.
“We have indicated all along that we would not be able to sign any agreement that did not protect employers from the threat of double dipping, with matters which impact on the total cost of employment negotiated both at national level through collective bargaining and, subsequently, at plant level.
“Secondly, we have indicated throughout the negotiations that labour brokers were a matter for labour to raise with government, and not with employers,” he added.
Numsa maintained that it was expecting a response from Seifsa.