Engineering News reports that trade unions and employers associations expect negotiations at the Metal and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council (MEIBC), which are set to start on 10 April in Boksburg, to be tough.

According to trade union Solidarity, the negotiations will be challenging because of an agreement reached during the Covid-19 pandemic period in terms of which salary increases were only calculated on the minimum salary scales per job grade. “Employers now want to continue this practice and, while trade unions are aware that the sector is under pressure, this will be opposed. This is because skilled employees are disadvantaged in particular by this practice and skilled employees’ disposable income continues to shrink, leaving them no choice but to leave the country, taking their skills abroad,” Solidarity’s Gideon du Plessis indicated. Solidarity advised that, in response to these circumstances, the six trade unions involved in the negotiations agreed not to come to the table with a long list of salary demands, but rather to make every effort for employees to receive increases on their actual salaries. Meanwhile, the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) said this year’s negotiations would not be easy as the challenges facing the industry were many. “South Africa’s economic outlook doesn’t look good and there is little business confidence. The notion of job retention and/or job creation on the back of an alarming[ly] high unemployment rate, fuelled by ongoing retrenchments and business closures, has become elusive,” the employers’ association commented.

• Read the full original of the informative report in the above regard at Engineering News

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