Numsa loses court battle to halt Barloworld retrenchments

JOHANNESBURG - Retrenchments at Barloworld Equipment are continuing following the Labour Court’s dismissal of the National Union of Metalworkers’ urgent application to halt the process and reinstate its members.

Numsa had  approached the Labour Court earlier this month, saying that Barloworld’s retrenchments of its 950 members of staff at its Caterpillar business resulted from a flawed retrenchment consultation process and the workers should be reinstated.

The company is the official Caterpillar dealer for 11 countries in Southern Africa and provides the brand’s construction, mining and industrial machine range to countries like Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Russia and the recently

acquired Mongolia-based Caterpillar dealer, Wagner Asia Equipment.

It began the retrenchment process due to its equipment business declining following the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns in the territories it operates in.

Numsa said the retrenchments that started two months ago did not consider alternatives for its members, such as voluntary severance packages and various criteria relating to the workers who were affected, including their names, skills and ages.

The labour union also said

Barloworld had refused to provide its order books for the year, to show where it stood financially, and that it had not prepared the affected employees for interviews for other positions.  The court dismissed Numsa’s application shortly after it was filed, saying that Barloworld had no legal obligation to agree to the alternatives proposed by the union.

It also said Numsa’s complaint about the interview process related to its fairness in terms of its application and implementation rather than fairness and objectivity. – FIN24.