BL Premium reports that the eight days it took the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) to finally agree on the employers’ final offer of a 6% wage increase cost metalworkers R100m in lost wages, taking their total losses to about R300m during the three-week strike in the metals and engineering sector.

In a media briefing on Thursday, Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said the union compromised by accepting the 6% based on the minimum rate of pay rather than on actuals because it wanted to settle the industrial action for the benefit of its members, who had paid a "heavy price during the strike". The three-year deal with the employer body, the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa), will see increases for lowest-paid workers of R52.52 to R59.01 per hour, and the highest-paid R88.99 to R98.11 per hour during the term of the deal. The hikes will be backdated to 1 July. Seifsa, the sector’s largest employer body representing 18 organisations with 170,000 workers, said last Friday that its proposed increase of 5% for artisans and 6% for general labourers was final. In a statement on Thursday, Seifsa said a "landmark wage agreement" had been reached. Workers are expected back at work from Friday. Numsa wants employment & labour minister Thulas Nxesi to gazette the deal and extend it to nonparties in the sector.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
• See too, SA steelworkers back pay deal to end protracted strike, at Moneyweb

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