Pretoria - Wage disputes could halt massive construction projects with huge time constraints unless agreement is reached by Thursday.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is, according to spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka, already in the process of preparing for a strike and after Thursday could give employers 24 hours' notice that its 50 000 members will walk out.
Major projects such as the Gautrain, stadiums for the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament, the new King Shaka airport outside Durban and the Gauteng freeway improvement plan - which is currently seriously disrupting the country's economic hub - could be paralysed by the strike.
NUM and the Building, Construction and Allied Workers Union (BCAWU) have for some time been at odds with the South African Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors (SAFCEC) and, during a meeting with the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) on Friday the parties were unable to reach a wage agreement.
The unions are currently unwavering in their demand for a 15% increase, inter alia, while the employers' inflation-linked offer is about 7%.
A new wage agreement is to come into effect in September.
According to Seshoka, Thursday's meeting was aimed at giving the SAFCEC negotiators an opportunity to get a new mandate, but he insists that nothing less than 15% will be acceptable to the unions.
The unions base their demands on the scintillating profits contractors recently achieved, and state that chief executives have received increases of 38% but their workers are denied15%.
A strike that, according to Seshoka, could continue indefinitely until workers' demands are met, could derail negotiations to complete the first stage of the Gautrein project ahead of time.
Jack van der Merwe, head of the Gautrein Management Agency, told Sake24 that negotiations were under way to have the rail link between Sandton and the OR Tambo Airport complete by May 27 next year.
The original completion date was midway into the tournament, which begins on June 11. This date had been agreed upon before the tournament dates had been finalised.
The contractor has been offered a R150m bonus to complete the work a few days before the tournament starts, but the negotiations are aimed at bringing the deadline further back to May 27.
According to Van der Merwe it is indeed possible to complete the first stage by May 27, "otherwise there would have been no basis for the negotiations".
How much extra it would cost and whether provincial and national government are prepared to meet these costs is, however, moot.
It goes without saying that a protracted strike could delay construction to the extent that the earlier completion date becomes totally impracticable.
On Sunday afternoon Basil Read construction group's chief executive Marius Heyns commented that the fact that the unions had not last week applied for a strike certificate was to him an indication that an agreement might yet be reached.
He said that contractors had not provided for such a large increase in their tenders, but clients were sometimes prepared to make a contribution rather than incur delays in the execution of their contracts.
Construction companies' operating profits for the previous financial year were as follows:
- Sake24.com
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