NUMSA declares dispute with 10500 companies Bernard Sathekge and Luyolo Mkentane, The New Age, 30 July 2014 NUMSA's strike by about 220000 members tomorrow will devastate key industries and will affect at least 10500 companies. Analysts warned yesterday that the stoppage would hurt iron and steel production, communications, plastics, consumer goods manufacturing and car components. NUMSA general secretary Irvin Jim was in a fighting mood yesterday, taking a swipe at employers body the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of SA (Seifsa), which said it would lock out striking workers at its 23 member factories. "They are strengthening the strike. They are uniting us," Jim said. Karl Cloete, deputy general secretary of NUMSA, said the union had declared a dispute with about 10500 companies and that the workers "are not taking anything less than a double-digit offer". NUMSA is demanding 12%, to be implemented over one year, a 16% incentive scheme and R1000 standby allowance. The employers have tabled a three-year wage offer of 7-8%. The union will picket in various cities on Wednesday, and will be joined by civil society groups and employees of Eskom, which has 9000 NUMSA members, many of them key personnel. The business community said another strike would drive South Africa into recession. Seifsa CEO Kaizer Nyatsumba said it was regrettable that partners in labour would fail to appreciate the consequences of their actions. Calvin Dihlori, an independent economist, said the strike would delay the completion of Eskom's Medupi and Kusile power plants. He said NUMSA would relish the opportunity to flex its muscles since withdrawing its support for the ANC in the May elections. "They'll want to show they can hold the economy to ransom." The Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) called on NUMSA to delay the strike. "If NUMSA is truly committed to cooperate with government and business it should return to the negotiating table," chamber CEO Neren Rau said. "SA has less than six months to convince the international community of our stability as an investment destination. A major strike would erase the opportunity for South Africa to redeem itself and government bonds would most certainly be downgraded. It's time for labour to act responsibly," Rau said. [email protected] From: http://thenewage.co.za/129988-1009-53-Numsa_declares_dispute_with_10500_comp anies -- -- 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] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
