Many years ago the union took a decision to bargain centrally. However there were companies that were given permission to continue to negotiate separately as House Agreements (HA). In previous NBCs the union adopted a resolution to incorporate HA into the engineering main agreement. However, the resolution failed to take off the ground.
Employers' uncertainty Many employers were against the idea. Others were saying they will adopt a ‘wait and see' attitude. Only Samancor in Mpumalanga was willing to come on board at that time. They even offered to use their influence on other HA but that did not fly either. Abes Mathibela from Mpumalanga had this to say, ‘besides employers resisting, we also had a capacity problem to deal with the issue at plant level and to some extent at national level.'
Employees' fears The employees feared that the union's demand for incorporation would erode their better benefits won in HA. But cde President points out that ‘when the National Bargaining Forum (NBF) was established, no worker lost the benefits that they had in their respective auto companies. Instead through the NBF we were able to improve benefits for Nissan, Toyota and Delta workers.' More recently the metal containers companies like Nampak, Van Leer, Divpac came into the Main Agreement, “and they didn't lose their better benefits either,†said Lucas Mthiyane, engineering sector co-ordinator.
The NBC decision this year After a lengthy discussion whether to table the demand first or to address fears of workers first, the conference finally resolved on a demand that says, ‘all HA companies must be incorporated into the main agreement as a separate schedule without loss of benefits' and that a process begins in earnest to alleviate any fears that members might have around incorporation into the main agreement.
What is different this year? The determination…determination from all levels of union leadership to go and ensure that come 2005, we implement after all processes are complete.
Source
Numsa News