BL Premium reports that members of the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) protested outside the Centurion offices of state-owned arms manufacturer Denel on Thursday, demanding a 15% wage increase.
According to the union, its members “have received only two salary increases in the last five years”. Denel is among state-owned enterprises (SOEs) hollowed out and repurposed to serve the interests of the governing elite during the state capture years. “Workers have suffered severely because of destructive cost-cutting [measures] by government and bosses,” Numsa noted. Deputy general secretary Mbuso Ngubane accused the late former public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan of collapsing Denel “so that at the end of the day the public shares the same sentiments to say, ‘indeed, the state is incapable of running these SOEs’”. Once public sympathy was received, the ground became fertile to “introduce private investors ... Gordhan, we are in this mess because of his legacy, Ngubane argued. Denel spokesperson Pam Malinda commented earlier about Thursday’s demonstration as follows: “Organised labour stated that they would like to express their unhappiness with the progress of the annual substantive wage negotiations process. Denel has granted permission for Numsa to demonstrate in terms of normal engagement protocols. This is a good-faith process between the parties with an expected duration of two hours, after which employees will revert to their workplaces.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
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