Strike thumb medium85 85ANA reports that AfriBusiness said on Monday that if a strike by the National Union of Metalworkers of SA Africa (Numsa) went ahead in the metal and engineering industries sector, it would cause irreparable damage to the economy.

This came as Numsa last week slammed “intransigent” employers in the sector and warned of a “total shutdown” in the industry as it goes into a fifth wage negotiation meeting.   Numsa has declared a dispute with employers in the sector wage negotiations, which deadlocked last month.  Charles Castle of AfriBusiness warned that the strike that Numsa was threatening would harm, rather than benefit, the workers.  He said that, if Numsa proceeded with its strike, the sector should expect more retrenchments and job losses which SA could ill afford.  He went on to say that the economic difficulties that employees in the sector faced were understood, but employers would be left with no other alternative but to commence with retrenchments as a result of affordability and profit margins.

 

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