Numsa to strike over proposed minimum wage
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) says it is set for rolling mass action in protest against the “super-exploitative” national minimum wage of R3 500 recently proposed by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said the new minimum wage determined through a Nedlac process was a continuation of the exploitation hatched with the 1910 Union of South Africa colonial project and the Land Act of 1913 to exclude blacks from economic participation.
“We want a minimum wage that will break the backbone of the super-exploitation,” Jim said.
He said Ramaphosa’s announcement on the minimum wage was to please rating agencies so that South Africa was not downgraded to junk status. He wanted the agencies to know that South African “workers were still available to be abused and super-exploited”.
Jim said Numsa rejected the endorsement of Ramaphosa as the next president of the ANC and the country, as did the Congress of SA Trade Unions.
He said that if the government was serious about a minimum wage, it would have gone sector by sector and company by company to establish their annual returns, how much their CEOs earned and what workers were paid.
Numsa, which will hold an elective congress in Cape Town next week, said it would also be a protest against what the union sees as government’s “attempt to limit the right to strike”.
Political economist Zamikhaya Maseti said the country could not afford a strike in the light of stagnant economic growth.
Maseti said although employers should not be allowed to continue paying apartheid wages, unions and employers must engage constructively to avoid strikes.
Responding to a question about who the union supported for the ANC leadership position, Jim said Numsa long ago passed a vote of no confidence in the ANC and, therefore, had no interest in picking any of its leaders.
Numsa’s elective congress is from December 12 to 15.