training
programme
subsequently
adopted and funded by the Merseta,
which garnered national recognition. The
Federation also secured donor funding
to accelerate apprentice intake and
embarked on an ambitious expansion
plan for the SEIFSA Training Centre to
cater for the growing demand for training.
Other significant developments and events that I
was privileged to be a part of included:
- Being witness to SEIFSA appearing
before the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, where SEIFSA presented
a perspective of the role that the
Federation had played in society from
1960 to 1994. The SEIFSA presentation
before the TRC focused, in particular,
on the Federation’s leadership role
in industrial relations, the negotiation
of industrial agreements covering the
industry’s workforce, our role in the
removal of job reservation in industry,
the recognition of Black trade unions,
and the improvement in the conditions of
employment of the industry’s workforce.
- Ours is a proud history of industrial
peace and stability – with only four
industry strikes having been experienced
over SEIFSA’s 75-year wage negotiation
history.
- Of course, over the past three decades
we have developed a very impressive
range of social security funds and
schemes for the industry’s workforce,
unparalleled by any other national
bargaining council.
-
-
- Our successful legal challenge to the
legality of the Numsa industry strike
in 1992, which brought our first major
industry strike to an end.
- From the late 1990s to date, SEIFSA
has developed an impressive range of
professional products and services of
direct benefit to individual members.
From our flagship products PIPS and the
SEIFSA Main Agreement Handbook, to
launching the Southern African Metals
and Engineering Indaba, the SEIFSA
Awards of Excellence and a variety
of Seminars, Workshops and Training
initiates, to providing professional
consultancy and advisory services
across all our divisions, SEIFSA
continues to lead the way in representing
our members’ interests.
-
And, of course, we are still experiencing
the shock and after-effects of the massive
violence and disruptions experienced
in the platinum sector, culminating in
the killing of the protesting workers at
Marikana. I suppose, given our very
violent industrial relations history in
this country, it should not have come
as a surprise that such intense conflict
between employers and workers could,
once again, erupt into very regrettable
violence and death.
The low point in my collective bargaining
career was the four-week, violent industry
strike in 2014, with the high point being
the recently-concluded three-year wage
deal reached in 2017, achieved – for the
first time in 10 years – without a single
day’s lost production.
I have witnessed the all but certain death
of the Metal and Engineering Industries
Bargaining Council and its survival into
business rescue and administration. I
have little doubt that this institution will
survive – albeit into a new, leaner and
more focused entity.
- All said and done, many challenges
still lie ahead: from unlocking the
prohibitive business environment for
SMMEs, revisiting the entry-level wage
structure, reassessing the sustainability
of the current one-size-fits all collective
bargaining model and, not least of all,
creating a bargaining council that is fit for
purpose and capable of accommodating
all the different employer constituencies
represented on its structures.
From these few highlights, it is clear that I have,
over my 28 years’ service with SEIFSA, been
privileged to be witness to and participant in
an exciting array of developments, initiatives,
experiences and events that have shaped our
organisation, current institutions, national