Iscor workers lay down tools
South African steel maker Iscor stated that the reasons behind the strike are so inconsequent that National Union of Metalworkers of South
Africa (NUMSA) could permanently damage one of South
Africa's major global companies.
Iscor's Human Resources Director Abe Thebyane made a statement that accepting the NUMSA's claim would have a knock on effect on several industries such as, mining,
construction, packaging, and
automotive industries and could also reduce the improvement of economy in the country.
Furthermore Iscor stated that the company paid to its labourers Zar 294 million for achieving re-engineering targets over a 3-year period.
Additionally, Iscor offered to make an ex-gratia payment to unionized labourers initial Zar 4.6 million and then offered to increase this by 50% to Zar 6.9 million for the difficult times during the restructuring.
Iscor will implement a new salary structure of adding Zar 26 million to its labour's wage bill. However, the improvement of the salaries will take a certain time. According to Iscor, if NUMSA will join to wage negotiations, this implementation period becomes shorter.