Tag Archives: unions

Lowest liveable wage the crux, says Vavi | Labour | BDlive

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UNIONS must ditch any wage talks based on percentage increases, even if they are in the double digits, and instead make a co-ordinated push for a nationwide minimum wage, suspended Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Monday.Speaking in his personal capacity at a National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa Numsa rally in Randburg, Mr Vavi said unions should push the state to implement what is calculated to be a minimum liveable salary of R4,500 a month.

“We must talk about money; when unions receive 9% or 7% this is misleading every time, and we are opening the gap between workers and these bosses,” said Mr Vavi.Mr Vavi’s comments to striking workers in the automotive retail sector come during a rancorous strike season that has seen unions push for, and in some cases receive, double-digit increases.Some 70,000 Numsa members in the automotive retail sector, which includes petrol pump attendants, auto-body workers as well as workers in the component manufacturing sector, downed tools on Monday after negotiations with the Fuel Retailers Association and the Retail Motor Industry Organisation deadlocked.

Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim encouraged non-Numsa affiliates to join the strike and said the strike would continue indefinitely, until the union’s demands, for among other things, a double-digit percentage pay increase, were met.Earlier, Numsa spokesman Castro Ngobese said the union was holding marches around the country to urge employers in the sector to return to the negotiating table.Numsa is demanding double-digit increases, improved shift allowances including a night-shift allowance of 20%, and an afternoon shift allowance of 15%.In the vehicle manufacturing sector, Numsa members returned to work on Monday after getting a multi-year double-digit wage increase of 11.5% for this year and 10% for both next year and 2015.

In the gold sector, a strike by the National Union of Mineworkers NUM came to an end on Sunday night, when striking workers at Harmony Gold returned to mineshafts. The NUM had signed off on a wage deal of between 7.5% and 8.5%.Gold producers on Monday reported that all operations across the sector had normalised. But NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said the union was “unhappy with the propaganda” being put out by producers, saying workers at Harmony Gold operations were still not keen on the revised offer.

via Lowest liveable wage the crux, says Vavi | Labour | BDlive.

South Africa Readies for Gold-Mining Wage Talks – WSJ.com

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LONDON—South Africa is likely to start official gold-mining wage talks sometime in the middle of July as unions have lodged their demands, including for sharp pay increases, against a backdrop of tense labor relations.

The Chamber of Mines received demands from four labor unions that will form the basis of the wage talks, said Elize Strydom, the senior executive in charge of industrial relations at the chamber.

“It is incumbent upon all of us to agree on a protocol on what we will negotiate, and what will be acceptable and won’t be acceptable conduct,” she said.

Wage contracts come to an end June 30, but she said even though wage negotiations are only likely to start in the middle of July, the results of those talks could be applied retroactively from July 1.

via South Africa Readies for Gold-Mining Wage Talks – WSJ.com.

South African Mine Industry at Stake in Wage Talks, Chamber Says – Businessweek

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South African mining companies and trade unions risk destroying the country’s biggest export industry and threatening its credit rating should wage talks fail, according to the Chamber of Mines.

“Failure is not an option as this will accelerate the creeping destruction of one of South Africa’s most important industries and inhibit the investment support that the country so urgently needs,” Bheki Sibiya, the Chamber’s chief executive officer, wrote in the Johannesburg-based Business Day newspaper.

Falling precious-metal prices and higher costs have squeezed South Africa’s gold and platinum producers, who are facing demands from labor unions to as much as double wages for entry-level workers. A year ago, strikes spilled over into violence that led to the deaths of 44 people and shaved 0.5 percentage points off economic growth.

Gold dropped 23 percent in the second quarter, the biggest three-month slump on record, while platinum is down 11 percent this year. More than half of South Africa’s gold and platinum operations are “in loss-making positions,” Sibiya said.

via South African Mine Industry at Stake in Wage Talks, Chamber Says – Businessweek.