BL Premium reports that packaging manufacturer Nampak has avoided a swathe of retrenchments at its plastics division after union talks resulted in an agreement to cut 20 jobs instead of the 213 initially planned.
An agreement was reached “with our social partners to allow for a voluntary severance package offer to all employees in the division”, CEO Erik Smuts said. In terms of the agreement with the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) last week, severance packages will be paid by 1 April to those workers leaving at end-March. Staff who will depart at end-June are expected to receive payouts by 1 July. Though Nampak initially started consultations in terms of a section 189 notice for altogether 213 potential retrenchments, Smuts said other “viable options” – including “normal attrition” and 151 positions being made redundant in terms of operational requirements – resulted in the forced retrenchments being limited to just 20 employees. Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said the severance packages agreed on were significantly better than the initial offer. They include three weeks’ remuneration for each year of completed service compared with one week’s remuneration required by law. In addition, any amount owed to employees, including accrued annual leave, will be paid with the final wages, while each worker will also receive R2,000 towards assisting them to be reskilled.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Michelle Gumede at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
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