Strikes now are short-sighted

There is no hiding the fact that our economy has taken a severe beating in the past 18 months (The Citizen editorial, 5 October).

There has been a severe steel shortage during Covid. The steel industry is in big trouble. People in every part of our economy are losing jobs and unemployment is running at record levels.

Under these extremely difficult circumstances, Numsa calls a strike for a wage increase of 8%.

After the last Numsa strike in 2014, in my own factory complex alone, 170 workers lost their jobs when two big businesses were forced to close down.

Strikes in the present economic climate are extremely short-sighted.

Paul Steyn