Numsa suspends strike to deal with interdict

A STRIKE by 900 Lear Corporation workers has been suspended until next Wednesday after the company said it would file a court interdict against the action, National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) said yesterday.

This would give its lawyers time to deal with the court interdict, which Lear Corporation was expected to file today without the intention to hinder the planned strike. Lear supplies seats to Mercedes-Benz SA in East London and its parent company Daimler in Germany.

A near month-long strike in the metals and engineering sector, which mostly affected suppliers to car manufacturers, was settled recently.

Earlier this week Numsa said it would lead 900 workers in a strike today, alleging the company had excluded it from employment programme talks for the new C-Class.

Lear denied the allegation and said it would interdict the union as the planned strike was “unprotected”.

Numsa also alleged Lear Corporation and its labour broker Capacity Staffing Solutions had dropped workers’ salaries from the previous hourly rate of R47.08 to R22.65, and called for fresh negotiations. Numsa local

We have decided to put the strike on hold so as to give our lawyers time to file an answering affidavit and Lear to do the same by Monday

organiser for automotive component workers Mteteleli Tshete said the strike was on hold on the advice of lawyers.

“There are discussions between their lawyers and ours. Our lawyers have proposed we hold the strike in abeyance until August 27 on an understanding Lear would file an urgent application to interdict the strike by close of business on August 20.”

“We have decided to put the strike on hold so as to give our lawyers time to file an answering affidavit by August 22 and Lear to do the same by midday on Monday. The matter will then be heard in the labour court on Tuesday,” said Mr Tshete.

Lear declined to comment yesterday, referring questions to Numsa.