Nissan SA Motor which threatened to retrench 410 employees this week has been plunged into another controversy – this time after demanding to offer meager voluntary severance packages equivalent to amounts it awarded five years ago.
The furore erupted after Numsa reached an in principle agreement with Nissan to replace anticipated forced retrenchments this week with negotiations for voluntary retirement packages for longest-serving employees.
Nissan management stuck to their guns demanding that they could only afford to pay employees with 30- years employment services and more with voluntary packages ranging between R110 000 and R150 000, which were offered in 2003 retrenchments negotiations.
Angry Numsa negotiators now have expressed “disgust and revulsion”, fearing that employees who gave dedicated service to the Japanese-based car manufacturer would never accept starvation packages considering the high inflation. The union favoured the severance packages to be more than the double amounts currently offered.
Nissan Japan earlier indicated that it planned to halve its domestic sales workforce worldwide as it restructured its home market where it suffered immensely from poor sales.
Yesterday Nissan management expressed grave concern over globalization effects, increased international competition and refused to consider alternatives to reducing the high number of those earmarked for voluntary packages, Numsa local coordinator Ali Makhusha said.
We have also asked the management to go back and review its position in further talks scheduled for next Thursday, he added.
Nissan had earlier introduced unilaterally retrenchment packages with effect from April 12, 2007. But, it later changed its position after union staged mass demonstrations at Japanese embassy, appealing for intervention of the Japanese government.
For more information contact:Mziwakhe Hlangani, Numsa national information officer
Cell Phone: 082 9407116
E-mail : mziwakheh@numsa.org.za
Web site : www.numsa.org.za