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Interim relief in wage agreement case

Johannesburg - The Labour Court in Johannesburg on Thursday granted interim relief when it prevented the extension of the metals industry wage agreement to non-signatories, the National Employers' Association of SA (Neasa) said.

"The court's decision is a major victory for Neasa's bid to stop the parties from having the [labour] minister extend this detrimental agreement to the whole industry," chief executive Gerhard Papenfus said in a statement.

"This judgment has prevented the MEIBC from bulldozing the minister into extending the agreement to the whole industry."

Arguments for final relief were set for November 4.

Neasa lodged an urgent application with the court on Thursday.

It wanted the court to prevent the Metal and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council (MEIBC) from asking the labour minister to extend the July 2014 agreement between the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of SA (Seifsa) and trade unions to those who were not party to that agreement.

Neasa wanted the Labour Court to declare the management committee, appointed by MEIBC's annual general meeting, invalid and that all decisions taken by the committee relating to the extension also be declared invalid.

This followed a strike in the metals industry which started on July 1 and lasted four weeks.

Seifsa signed the agreement on July 29 on behalf of the 24 federated associations and two associations were still involved in internal mandating processes.

In terms of the three-year agreement workers are to get increases of between eight and 10 percent in the first year, 7.5 and 10% in the second year, and seven to 10 percent in the third year.

Neasa announced it would lock out union members who participated in the strike because its demands had not been considered during the wage negotiations.

Neasa members wanted a standardised entry-level wage and a revamped exemptions policy. It has offered an eight percent across-the-board salary increase.

Earlier this month, Numsa's Labour Court application to declare Neasa's lock-out of employees illegal was dismissed with costs.

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