Workers affiliated to the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) picketed outside Denel’s head office in Centurion on Wednesday to demand a 7% wage increase but salary negotiations remain unresolved.
Union spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola said it’s been five years since the workers were given an increase. “Workers at Denel feel they have suffered to save the entity, and they feel justified in demanding a wage increase. They are struggling with the cost of living.”
Wednesday’s picket coincided with a meeting between the workers’ union representatives and the company’s board members to discuss the ongoing dispute over salary increases, IOL reported.
Hlubi-Majola said workers were promised a 7% increase earlier this year by the executive management, but the board withdrew that proposal and offered an inflation-based increase instead.
“All Denel needs to do is to implement that agreement. And they are basically delaying the implementation of that. In the recent past we engaged with the management and they would have agreed that they were running out of money last year. At the beginning of this year they made a commitment of 5% plus 2% which would have taken that to 7%. From where we are sitting making our own assessment it is the board that is playing delaying tactics,” Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim told IOL.
Denel and Numsa were expected to meet again on Friday for further negotiations.
Denel’s inability to grant salary increases is rooted in a financial crisis. The company has not published audited financial statements since the 2019/20 financial year, when it was technically insolvent with liabilities exceeding assets by nearly R2.3 billion.
Numsa members picketed outside Denel’s offices in October last year over the lack of salary increases. At the time they demanded a 15% increase.
