The National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) has announced that it would lodge a strike notice with the Retail Motor Industry (RMI) after failing to conclude three months wage negotiations.
The National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) has announced that it would lodge a strike notice with the Retail Motor Industry (RMI) after failing to conclude three months wage negotiations.
On Wednesday, Numsa’s national spokesperson Dumisa Ntuli told CARtoday.com that while the talks continued, no agreement had yet been reached.
Ntuli said the union had not expected any kind of agreement in Wednesday’s talks “as long as they [the fuel retailers] remain impervious to our requests”.
The retail industry employs about 180 000 workers at petrol service stations, vehicle dealerships and panel shops. Ntuli said the union had declared a dispute with the RMI and Fuel Retailers’ Association three months ago, and was now preparing its members for mass action in the sector.
He said an offer of a 6,5 per cent increase had been made to motor component manufacturing workers but that there had been no outcome in the talks these past three months. The union hoped to “influence the outcome” of the wage talks with strike action, Ntuli said.
RMI chief executive Jeff Osborne said that any comment was premature since negotiations were still underway. Osborne said that Numsa had tabled its demands and the RMI had considered and responded to them.
Osborne told that of the 14 demands tabled by Numsa, the RMI had found four problematic, which led to Numsa’s dispute declaration.
The date on which the strike action would commence has already been set at September 1, Ntuli said on Wednesday.
