 Engineering striker talks ‘promising’ Talks to end the engineering sector strike have reached a “promising stage”, the Metal and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council (MEIBC) said on Tuesday. “With the assistance of independent mediators the talks have reached a promising stage, which, it is hoped, will bring the industrial action to a swift conclusion,” spokeswoman Judith Annakie-Eriksen said in a statement. The largest trade union in the sector and the employer representative were consulting their principals and mandating structures on a proposed settlement on Tuesday. They were expected to return to the council on Thursday with feedback from their members. The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) and the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of SA (Seifsa) met with the MEIBC on Friday evening. “The purpose of the meeting was to map a way forward to find a constructive and speedy resolution to the industry-wide dispute.” In further off-the-record talks between the two over the weekend and again on Monday, encouraging progress was made. “The parties remain committed to ongoing constructive dialogue in an effort to bring this industry dispute to a speedy end,” Annakie-Eriksen said. Seifsa said talks in the engineering sector had been unsuccessful so far. “The differences between the two parties at this stage are substantial and it appears unlikely that an early resolution to the strike is possible,” Seifsa's executive director David Carson said in a statement. He said it was possible there would be further negotiations later in the week. Numsa deputy general secretary Karl Cloete said the strike would continue until an agreement was signed. “At the moment there is little movement. They have moved up from seven percent.” He could not elaborate on the details of the negotiations, but said the union would release a statement once it heard back from strikers on Wednesday. He said the three crucial stumbling blocks were the size of the wage increases, the use of labour brokers, and whether the duration of agreement would be for two or three years. “These are the three hard issues that we will have to deal with before we get to a settlement. “The negotiating teams have worked very hard, and although there's no massive movement towards settlement, there is movement nevertheless. Continuing to talk is going to be in the interest of all parties.” More than 120,000 engineering workers are demanding 10 to 13 percent increases. Numsa is leading the strike, and acting on behalf of the Metal and Electrical Workers' Union and the SA Equity Workers' Association. – Sapa You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . |
