What about the hopes of ex-metalworkers that there might be some payout from the surplus in the engineering pension and provident funds.
We were waiting for legislation to be finalised. It has been confirmed that funds must go back to 1980 to find former members. Now we are waiting for specific regulations.
The legislation says you have to prioritise the former members and pensioners. You must allocate a sum of money for former members and pensioners and then pay them all.
If you can only trace 20% of your former members, then the money for the remaining 80% will go to government who will create a fund.
Is there any way of saying how we want government to spend that money?
We will only be involved in terms of White and Green papers – that is how we will be able to input.
It is not how we wanted to do it. We wanted to keep the money and distribute it to active members and that was going to involve giving a contribution holiday to current members and improve their benefits.
So it is really on us to find as many former members of the pension/provident funds as possible?
Yes.
How many people are we talking about?
990 000 and many of them will only get R500 and less!
At the last National Bargaining Conference in 2001 there was a debate about reviewing the grading system in the next round of negotiations. What has happened to this?
There is a belief amongst employers that the 5-grade structure was an Elias Monage (ex-engineering sector co-ordinator) thing and that with the departure of Elias this is now dead.
When the NBC debated this, we told employers we will be coming to the next round of negotiations demanding a grading structure that is going to be compulsory.
Employers responded suggesting a study tour. So now we will be going to Europe on November 25 – Germany , Spain , Belgium , Italy , Sweden . We will meet with employers and trade unions in each of these countries.
Parallel to that the last National Congress decided to research the whole area of the 3-year bargaining strategy.
Now people have decided to put the grading research and the bargaining strategy research together. So now we are postponing for two years the finalisation of the grading structure for the industry.
Source
Numsa News