Thousands Numsa workers march for 8% salary increase
Thousands of workers affiliated to the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) have marched to the offices of the Metals and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council in Johannesburg.
On Tuesday, Numsa officially begun its nationwide indefinite strike in the engineering sector
#NumsaStrike Thousands of workers ready to deliver the memorandum pic.twitter.com/9lyhjYAcFH
— Jacaranda News (@JacaNews) October 5, 2021
This after negotiations for an 8% salary increase across the board reached a deadlock.
"From today we are declaring a war against an opportunistic agenda to plunge workers, who are producers of wealth into a slavery national minimum wage. The government of Cyril Ramaphosa has given them free ammunition by legislating R21 as a national minimum wage," said the union’s president Andrew Chirwa.
Numsa is also demanding a CPI + 2% improvement factor for the second and third years.
The union says if CPI+ 2% falls below 6%, the employers must offer 6% or reopen negotiations.
They have rejected the 4% increase that was offered.
"Those companies where your managers and bosses want to offer 7%, 8%, 10%, they must not do that opportunistically, they must bring it here to the bargaining council and not divide us," said Chirwa.
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