BL Premium reports that operations at car dealerships, fuel stations, auto-spare assembly centres and panel-beating workshops could grind to a screeching halt across the country if no wage agreement is reached between the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) and employers in the retail motor sector.

The union leaders and representatives from the Retail Motor Industry Organisation (RMI) and the Fuel Retailers Association (FRA) held crunch talks at the Motor Industries Bargaining Council (Mibco) on Tuesday in an effort to break the wage deadlock. Talks are set to end on Wednesday. The wage discussions began in March, but Numsa declared a dispute after parties failed to hammer out a pay-hike deal after three rounds of talks at the bargaining council, where the union demanded a one-year 12% pay increase. Numsa accused employers – who had not tabled an offer – of pushing the union into a corner by demanding that it should revise its wage demand down. The sector represents employees in components-manufacturing companies, fuel stations, car dealerships, car cleaning and auto-spare assembly, and employs about 306,000 workers nationally, of whom about 90,000 are Numsa members. Numsa spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola advised on Tuesday: “We are [now] meeting with employers. We are not saying any more for now, except that we are engaging each other. We will give a full update on Wednesday afternoon after we have [finished] the meeting. If we do not walk out of [Mibco] with an agreement on Wednesday, we are headed for a strike. However, we will do whatever is necessary to avoid that. Our attitude to these talks is to prevent a strike from taking place.”

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
• Read too, Retail motor sector wage negotiations deadlocked, with mediation set to take place this week, at Moneyweb

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