The National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa), which is engaged in wage talks with ArcelorMittal South Africa (Amsa), on Tuesday said the steelmaker’s CEO, Kobus Verster, had at the last minute thrown in another condition, which was a setback for negotiations, which had finally got off the ground.
Despite a request for comment, Amsa failed to respond by the deadline.
Numsa said wage talks had been deadlocked, since April 5. However, it met on April 19 for the first dispute resolution meeting, with the other recognised union, Solidarity. At the meeting, the Amsa negotiating team had presented an offer to workers and Numsa had been consulting its members.
Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said: “We were in the process of consulting our members on the offer, when suddenly Kobus (Verster) demanded that the condition for us to accept this offer was that Amsa would be withdrawing the skills retention bonus.”
The proposed offer was a three-year agreement with an 6.5% increase for year one, CPI or 6.5% increase whichever is greater for year two and year three as well as R10 000 signing bonus.
On medical aid Amsa would contribute 65%, while workers contributed 35% for 2024. For the third year of the agreement, Amsa would contribute 70% while workers contributed only 30%. This as the funeral benefit would increase from R10 000 to R20 000 and fully paid paternity leave would increase to 12 days.
Jim said: “The proposed offer which we presented to members did not have this as a condition. For Kobus to suddenly make this demand at the 11th hour and to do so outside of the bargaining forum is frankly, unethical.”
Numsa said it condemned the actions of Verster for sabotaging the progress that it had made during wage talks.
However, the labour union said it remained committed to finding an amicable resolution to this impasse and called on Verster to do the right thing, and “reverse this backward proposal on the skills retention allowance”.
BUSINESS REPORT