Hourly paid workers at DCSA are tightening their belts after six months of working a 4-day week (32 hours). And workers have been warned that this could continue until 2007. Car buyers it seems do not want to buy an ‘old look’ C-series model when the new look C-series is to hit the streets in 2007.
The only thing keeping workers going is workers’ PDRs, says full-time shop steward Lulamile Bazi. This is a production reward based on quality, quantity and costs used in production. The maximum that workers can receive for the month is the equivalent of one extra week’s wages paid two weeks into the following month.
Their hope for a layoff payment was dashed by changes to the auto agreement which now only pays a benefit for “every hour less than the equivalent of four ordinary work-days in any normal work-week.”
However, the only other option was to get rid of excess workers, an option that workers rejected so as to save jobs.
The Union is still pushing management to provide training for workers on the 5th day.
Meanwhile, things are looking better for Christmas after promises that from the second week of October until shutdown on December 15, they will go back to a 40-hour week.