The National Employers’ Association of South Africa (Neasa) plans to return to the Labour Court, in Johannesburg, for final arguments relating to its urgent application to prevent the Metal and Engineering Industry Bargaining Council (MEIBC) from requesting the Labour Minister to extend a July agreement, between the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa (Seifsa) and trade unions, to employers not party to that agreement.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and five other unions had accepted Seifsa’s offer of a 10% wage increase for the lowest grade employees for three years; however, Neasa had not signed the agreement, arguing that the increase was at an “unsustainable level” and would cause the metals and engineering industry to decline even further.

Following the interim relief that was granted by the Labour Court on September 25, the Labour Court on November 4 granted Neasa further interim relief in this matter and a new date was set for arguments for final relief.

This interim relief prohibited the MEIBC from approaching the Minister with a request to extend the July agreement.

“Apart from the agreement [being] detrimental to the metal industry, all attempts by the MEIBC, thus far, to extend it [have been] illegal and unconstitutional,” Neasa CEO Gerhard Papenfus said in a statement on Friday.