Pretoria - The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) is set to make a decision on the Easter holiday bus strike today, after a “do-or-die” mediation meeting between them and bus operators.
This was revealed by Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim after the parties went into late-night mediation after reaching a deadlock with their employers – the South African Bus Employers Association and the Commuters Bus Employers Organisation – on their demands for an 8% salary increase and medical aid for all workers.
“The commissioner of the South African Road Passenger Bargaining Council, which is the bargaining forum, has arranged a meeting on Thursday (today) in order for all parties to find one another.
“This is a crucial meeting. It is in fact a do-or-die meeting which will determine whether we resume the national shutdown in the bus passenger sector or not.
“We hope that employers will be ready to engage with us and with our demands so that we can find an amicable resolution to the dispute,” he said.
Jim reiterated their demands: A one-year agreement; an 8% increase across the board; and medical aid or medical insurance for all workers.
“If we fail to find one another, then unfortunately the strike in the bus sector will continue.
“We are aware of the major inconvenience that this may cause to the public, but unfortunately, we have no choice but to resort to this drastic course of action,” he said.
Earlier, Numsa revealed that their dispute was around the issue of medical aid, saying their employers wanted that issue to be dealt with at company or plant level, and not to negotiate it at the National Bargaining Forum (NBF).
“We wish to state upfront that the mediator’s proposal does not reflect the position of the majority of unions.
“Numsa is the majority union in the bus passenger sector, and we did not endorse the proposal.
“However, despite our misgivings about how this was done, we welcome the opportunity to engage the proposal and hope that we can make adjustments to some of the proposal so that it comes closer to meeting some of our demands.
“Both employers made an offer directly to employees of a 6% increase for three years. This proposal is conditional upon workers dropping the demand for medical insurance.
“Employers did not table it at the NBF, which is the formally recognised structure for negotiations,” Jim said.
He said the employers’ failure to table an offer at the NBF was due to the fact that they did not respect centralised bargaining, adding that they had undermined the NBF at every turn.
“Medical insurance is a life-and-death matter for our members, the majority of whom cannot afford medical aid on their salaries. The lowest- paid workers are earning on average about R7 800 per month. Therefore, medical aid is unaffordable.
“It is a well-known fact that public hospitals and clinics are collapsing and this is why we are demanding medical aid. Hospitals and clinics are drastically short-staffed and under-resourced. Therefore, workers want to be able to access private healthcare,” Jim said.
He said if the medical aid issue was deferred to the plants, the likelihood of the majority of workers achieving this benefit was very low.
According to Jim, most companies would refuse to grant the benefit and that was why they wanted the matter to be resolved in this round of negotiations at a national level.
Pretoria News