About 1700 Goodyear employees in Port Elizabeth are set to embark on a legal strike this
week after management reportedly refused to employ 300 temporary workers for the past
five years.
These temporary workers have suffered repression from the labour broker- Kelly
Temporary Staffing Agency – which allegedly denied them medical aid and provident
fund benefits for five years.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) has filed a notice to go
on strike after Goodyear management allegedly refused to employ the temporary workers
and the strike is to resume later this week.
Some of the temporary employees who suffer from chronic illnesses have not been able
to get medical attention because the company also refused to give them medical
assistance when they could not afford inflated medical bills. Sick workers were forced to
come to work because they could not get medical certificate as a result o their inability to
pay medical practitioners.
“We have done all in our power to persuade the management to change its intransigent
approach on this matter for the past two years. And, the new tyre and manufacturing
bargaining council has also failed to resolve the dispute, leaving us with no other
alternative but to embark on a disruptive strike action,” Andile Zitho NUMSA local
organizer said yesterday.
The union is also in dispute with Goodyear management over its misuse of workers who
were on learnership internship programs in the company. These workers were sourced
from unemployed people, but have not been granted work contracts since September
2005, he said.
NUMSA is also miffed at the treatment of these learners because they were forced to
work normal shifts like full time employees and worked overtime during weekends for a
meagre wages of R2 000 a month.
Workers on leanership programmes were not supposed to work in the production
operations on night shifts and over weekends. But, management insisted that it would
keep them on production lines because there were no modules to learn in classes. It has
also emerged that these workers have been kept on level 1 for longer periods because
learning materials were no longer available.
The strike will continue infinitely until management addressed the workers’ problems.
NUMSA is also deeply frustrated by management inconsistencies on government policies
regarding learnerships and the employment of contract workers for more than six months,
without affording them basic benefits in terms of the Labour Relations Act.
For more information contact:
Mziwakhe Hlangani, NUMSA national information officer
Mobile: 083 7293374.
E-mail address: mziwakheh@numsa.org.za