Metalworkers’ union Numsa says workers at Macsteel are back at work following a strike after the steel producer “forcefully retrenched” workers for allegedly rejecting a R40,000 retrenchment package.
The weeklong strike ended on Friday after parties reached a deal that saw those retrenched “placed in jobs within Macsteel”.
They had retained their full benefits, wages and conditions of employment, said Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim
Only five workers did not take up the offer to be reinstated, electing to accept the retrenchment package.
“The union has resolved to meet these workers to ascertain whether indeed that is their final position on the matter, and to make sure that they understand that that whatever job they had chosen at Macsteel, even if it was a lower position/grade, the union has ensured that they will not lose their salary scale in terms of grades,” Jim said.
This is as embattled steel major ArcelorMittal SA (Amsa) told its employees recently that attempts to save its long steel business had failed, with 3,500 workers now set to lose their jobs. In a memo to employees seen by Business Day, Amsa CEO Kobus Verster said the group would wind down its long steel business at the end of September.
“Unfortunately, efforts to secure funding to operate beyond September 30 2025 have failed. In this light we must now, I regret to say, take further preparatory steps towards the closure of the longs business,” the memo reads .
“This is not a decision that anyone wishes to make, but it is a reality that we must responsibly prepare for. We will accordingly be issuing section 189 notices to affected employees in the longs business on a staggered basis as facilities wind down, commencing on September 1 2025,” it explains. It has been a torrid few years for Amsa’s long steel business, with it having posted cumulative losses of R1.7bn since 2023.
Meanwhile, Jim thanked the union leadership for leading from the front against Macsteel, saying: “This remains proof that unity is strength, and the slogan ‘united we stand divided we fall’, remains true. The union embarked on this strike as a last resort after Macsteel refused to consider meaningful alternatives that the union advanced in the section 189A consultation process. This includes Macsteel’s refusal to pay workers a decent severance pay package, something the union condemns in the strongest terms.”
He called on the department of employment and labour to “set a minimum standard for severance packages that is fair, so that companies cannot pay lower than the minimum floor”.
“It should not be tolerated that employers can pay workers empty voluntary severance packages in the name of voluntarism; this is abuse. It is Numsa’s firm view that greedy bosses must be stopped, particularly when they exploit workers for years,” he said.
“Workers sell their labour and the bosses maximise profits during boom time, and they discard them through retrenchments with empty packages. This behaviour of bosses of treating workers like slaves, as Macsteel has done by offering workers a lousy R40,000, is criminal.”
Comment from Macsteel will be added once received.
With Kabelo Khumalo
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