Johannesburg - Striking engineering workers started marching
in a cold Johannesburg on Monday to demand better wages.
National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) members, some
wrapped in blankets, started marching from the Workers' Library in Newtown just
before noon to press for a 13% salary increase as opposed to the 7% offered by
their employers.
Workers, most of them wearing red Numsa T-shirts over bulky
winter clothes, filled the square outside the library. Some carried sticks and
others placards. Police kept an eye on the crowd as it was entertained with
music played over a loudspeaker on the back of a bakkie.
The SA Communist Party said its leaders would
participate in the march in solidarity with the engineering workers.
"It is time now that we decisively put capital on the
back foot and undermine its growing arrogance and hold on the lives of ordinary
South Africans," it said.
The National Union of Mineworkers (Num) also issued a
statement of support.
"We appeal to the employer bodies in the steel,
engineering, paper, print and chemicals to accede to these reasonable
demands," said Num general secretary Frans Baleni.
"There should be no going back in our fight for a
living wage. It is not negotiable to earn a decent wage, it is a 'must
deliver'."
Several trade unions, representing about 170 000 workers,
were taking part in the strike on Monday.
"Workers are striking in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth,
East London and Cape Town," said Numsa spokesperson Castro Ngobese.
Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal workers would hold
demonstrations on Monday, while workers in the Free State and Northern Cape
would start their work stoppage on Tuesday.
Numsa, which represents about 120 000 workers, would be
joined by five other trade unions representing at least another 50 000 workers.
According to the Steel Engineering Industries Federation of
SA's (Seifsa) website, it had received strike notifications from the Chemical
Energy Paper Printing Wood and Allied Workers' Union (Ceppwawu), and the Metal
and Electrical Workers Union.
United Association of SA (Uasa) senior manager Johan van
Niekerk said Uasa, Solidarity and the SA Equity Workers Association would also participate.
He said Uasa members were preparing to march in Johannesburg
on Monday morning. "The employers' salary offer did not meet our
demands," said Van Niekerk.
Ceppwawu plastics sector coordinator Clement Chitja said
the six unions were working together. "We all have the same common
demands," he said.
The Metal and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council
(MEIBC) on Monday said that while wage negotiations were reaching the
"power play stage", it was confident an agreement would be reached.
"The council has urged all employers to follow the
industry-accepted principle of 'no work, no pay, no discipline' in the event of
protected industrial action."
The MEIBC said it had received notices of intended lock-out
action from Seifsa.
The strike started on Monday after the Labour Court's
weekend dismissal of an application for an interdict to stop the strike,
brought by the Plastic Converters' Association.
"The Labour Court decision effectively upholds the
right of all employees and employers in the industry to engage in protected
industrial action on Monday, July 4 2011 in the metal and engineering
industry," the MEIBC said.
Seifsa represents 28 employer organisations. In a notice
posted on its website in May, it said the metal industry's four-year wage and
conditions of employment agreement would expire on June 30.
The agreement covered 9 000 companies and about 348 000
workers.
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