Steel industry wage offer falls short of what workers seek
Employers say the demands are unaffordable given the blow suffered from the Covid-19 pandemic and declining steel prices
The Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) has tabled a revised conditional wage increase of 4.4% across the board for the first year, which falls short of trade union demands.
The offer made on Monday also includes a consumer price index (CPI) plus 0.5% increase in year two and CPI plus 1% in year three. This is a far cry from the demand by the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) — the country’s largest metalworkers’ union with 360,000 members — of a 15% salary hike across the board in a one-year agreement. Another union in the sector, Solidarity, is demanding an increase of CPI plus 5%. ..
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