Demands1. Disclose Information on:- Actual wages of all employees, hourly and salaried; and- Executive pay, its perks and its increases over the past three years.2. Duration of agreement – July 1st 2007 to June 30th 2010
3. Wages – Benchmark with actual artisans’ and technicians’ rates – Year one: 15% increase on actual artisans’ and technicians’ rates cascaded down according to the existing differentials and spreads.- Year two and three: Guaranteed year one increment plus real wages improvement.
4. Hours of work / Overtime- Work week must be Monday through Friday;- Saturday and Sunday must be paid as overtime regardless of shift patterns; andIn the event of unbecoming overtime, new shifts must be designed in full consultation leading to agreement thereby creating jobs for the unemployed.
Key auto and tyre demands:1. Disclose Information on:- Actual wages of all employees, hourly and salaried; and- Executive pay, its perks and its increases over the past three years.2. Wages- Benchmark with actual artisans’ and technicians’ rates – Year one: 15% increase on actual artisans’ and technicians’ rates cascaded down according to the existing differentials and spreads.- Year two and three: Guaranteed year one increment plus real wages improvement.3. 3-year agreement4. scrap labour brokers5. Monday to Friday working week with Saturdays and Sundays paid as overtime regardless of shift patterns6. One industry provident fund7. One bargaining council for auto, tyre, bus, truck and other auto related companies———————–
5. Scrap labour brokers6. Severance Pay of at least 4 weeks pay for each year of service 7. Social Plan – if retrenchments take place, there must be a social plan intervention8. Full payment for lay-off and short time 9. 7 days family responsibility Leave
10. Shift Allowance & Transport – 25% stable night shift;- 20% rotational night shift; – 15 % rotational afternoon shift; – 10% rotational morning Shift; and – Employers to provide transport for shift workers
11. 6 months maternity leave with full pay and benefits12. 5 days paternity Leave
13. HIV & Aids- If a workers has disclosed his/her HIV positive status s/he must be exempt from disciplinary action for medically related absenteeism;- If a worker is not covered by medical aid, the employer should pay for treatment;- If an employee is terminated from employment for whatever reason while on HIV treatment, the employer must pay for the treatment until the affected employee is enrolled with the State’s HIV/Aids programme;- Employers must also provide for a community centre to support HIV positive persons.
14. Medical aid contribution of 80% from the employer15. One industry provident fund and a 4% increase in employers’ contribution16. One auto Bargaining Council to be established within 12 months and to cover tyre and rubber, bus, truck and other auto related plants
17. Training and Employment Equity- create a labour pool to facilitate skills development and ABET during working hours. – 5 days paid time off per annum for union facilitated training to members other than shop stewards.- RPL applied to all workers and their placement in qualified rates within respective skills level. – An end to soft-skills training to be replaced by well-structured training with clear career paths. – employment equity must transform the workplace and promote previously disadvantaged employees. – the industry to monitor transformation with regards to skills development and employment equity.
18. Health & Safety- Full-time health and safety shop steward elected by workers with 5 days off for training19. Annual Leave of 20 days – Pro-rata payment of annual bonus in the event of termination 20. Scrap the “No further claims clause”21. BEE – must be broad-based and allow eg Esops and worker-owned cooperatives22. MNCs – There must be meaningful consultation in South African plants over decisions made at the MNC’s headquarters.
Nissan workers must decide on their future NISSAN workers have up until May 15 to decide whether to accept management’s revised voluntary severance package (VSP) offer. Management wants to retrench 274 employees hourly paid and 103 salaried employees.It is offering:
Years of service
Normal offer in terms of the auto agreement
New VSP offered after Numsa intervention
10 to 20 years service
R56 000
R110 000
20 to 30 years service
R57 000
R150 000
30 years and above
R96 000
R170 000
Over and above this, it has put aside R2m to share amongst the hourly paid employees. This means that each retrenched worker will get an additional R7000. Nissan has also offered to bring in financial advisers to help workers plan how to save and make their packages last longer. Numsa local organiser, Ali Makhusha worries that although the amount can seem a lot, it will soon be reduced when workers have to pay off their debts and are faced with normal monthly expenses. Evidence of this is that many of the workers now working as Nissan contract workers are those that took packages a few years ago. But they are working at reduced rates of pay without full benefits and with no job security.