Metals Industry strike - my take

[Justloadit]

COSATO and NUMSA are creating so much damage with their unrealistic demands, that it makes me think of an analogy as follows :-

This would be a great cartoon for 'Zapiro'

Imagine there is this wooden ship floating down the river, it is powered by a steam engine, the steam engine is used to power this boat up and down the river. Inside this ship it has paying customers, and in the cargo bay there are goods being transported.

The captain is our president, surrounded by his wives, not caring about what is going ob below deck. The unions are beating the customers, and ransacking the goods, and are manning the steam engine. Since there is no fuel on board, as it was not loaded at the port, the unions are busy stripping the ship from the inside supporting rafters to fuel the steam engine while it chugs along the river.

We all know what is going to happen next, don't we once there is a big hole in the bottom of the hull.

[desA]

Add in the wood borers chewing the timber. A swarm of locusts has just set up home. Wasps have begun making nests.

The painters keep painting water onto the timbers to halt the borers, locusts & wasps - as the budget is not there for bug-killer & varnish.

[Dave A]

These strikes are incredibly destructive. I heard today that Amplats is intending to sell some of their shafts.

The workers had better hope they don't get bought by the asset strippers that have been the end of quite a few mines already.

[IanF]

Here is a blog post from America

UNIONS—-DO THEY PROTECT OR DESTROY JOBS ?

The conclusion is:

This blog is not to be misunderstood as anti-union, but an eye opening comment as to what has happened, and is now happening as you read this little story. This is REALITY. As I did, take a few moments and think back to any and all BIG BUSINESSES that you grew up with, if they are gone (in most cases they are) ask yourself why and draw your own conclusions. While unions are good for workers, they MUST realize where they ultimately will hurt those they represent and act accordingly (this is for the benefit of all). JUST THINK ABOUT IT. For all those that think unions are declining because of the fall of percentages from 20%+ down to 12%, think again. The 12% is based on a much larger population that when their numbers were 20%, plus their dues are much higher. So if anything they are much stronger and that is why they never defend their lower percentage. SMART LIKE A FOX. Can’t we all just get along ?

So the unions are strong in America they have destroyed large industries it looks like we are heading the same way with our mines and other large employers. I see Escom being broken up it smaller parts because of the unions and destructive effect of BEE and AA.

[desA]

A fair amount of gimme syndrome appears to be at work. So incredibly destructive.

[IanF]

Johannesburg - The main employer body in South Africa's metals and engineering federation has accepted a government proposal to raise wages by as much as 10 percent, it said on Tuesday, raising hopes of an end to a strike by more than 200,000 workers.

The Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa said unions led by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa have until Friday to accept the offer. - Reuters

From IOL website

Lets hope this ends this strike. Nice time to be selling automation equipment for factories.

[tec0]

There is a second side to this story, consider how much money was “lost” during the strikes.

I stand to be corrected I think it was a couple of hundred million rand?

Anyhow if they said “OK” here is your money wouldn’t that have been cheaper less damaging and perhaps healthier for our economy?

I mean seriously these people are asking for very little money if you start calculating the overall profits.

Obviously a small business owner cannot afford it but someone with a 700 million+ profit surly can.

Consider that most of these mega corporations have been functioning in this country for more than 20 years. (much more)

How many BILLIONS have they made over the years? I mean if it is not profitable why continue?

Also consider that minimum income in first world countries VS South Africa. If these companies are to let’s say start a mine in Australia then they will have to go by the Australian law of minimum income right?

So will that cost them more money or less money to do? Considering Australia has a healthy economy and there minimum income is MUCH higher than our own...

Truth is our rand is weak and our labour is cheaper than anywhere else in the world.

YES if you earn Rands and pay people in Rands it is difficult. BUT if you get paid in first world money and convert that to our money it is almost nothing. Why because the rand has no real value.

[Justloadit]

Anyhow if they said “OK” here is your money wouldn’t that have been cheaper less damaging and perhaps healthier for our economy?

So what will then stop them from demanding a 100% increase next time?
After all business makes profit, so rather give it to the employees because the employees made it work, f..k the investors who put the money in the first place to make the mines a viable business, they have no right for return on their money - which means there is no more future investment into anything new cos there is no guarantee on return on investment, cos the workers have the right to your money. Stuff spending money on R & D, stuff spending money on maintenance and replacement of equipment, the employees must get it all.

Anyway the fact that the may be millions of Rands of profit, it must be returned to the investors, and there is not just one investor, there is probably millions of investors in the company, who placed their hard earned money to make the company become profitable and create a return on their money.

What we keep forgetting, is that automation will make 90% of the jobs obsolete, this will create a huge unemployment situation. To prevent this, wages will be lower per preson, simply because of the numbers of employees involved. It is a natural phenomena, the more scarce the resource the higher the value, the more abundant the resource the less value it has. Right now we have an abundance of unskilled workers.

[tec0]

So what will then stop them from demanding a 100% increase next time?

There is an obvious line of what is possible and what isn’t possible. What is to stop you to increase your prices with a 100% or what is to stop tax from demanding a 100%? It is the same question. Realistically the larger mining groups could have avoided everything if they had implemented realistic wage and started with local development "spend a tiny amount of those BILLIONS on things like housing schools a hospital or two. But look where those workers live and what they have.

But they didn’t spend the money and that left an OPEN DOOR to what you see now. I know a lot of these workers not all of them are monsters they never hurt anyone and never wanted anyone to get hurt. All they want is to be able to live. Is that so wrong?

But because these large organizations left the door open to begin with you get what you get now. Truth is everything could have been avoided. If they have spend 1% of there profits imagine the impact it would have had.

truth is you have to spend money to make money. They didn't and here we are.

[Justloadit]

There is an obvious line of what is possible and what isn’t possible. What is to stop you to increase your prices with a 100% or what is to stop tax from demanding a 100%? It is the same question.

In my case, or any business, there is competition. Lest we not forget, we are on the world stage and competing with other countries, and quite frankly we are losing hands down.
In the case of employees, there are many unemployed who wish to work, and are not being employed because the unions are not allowing them to be employed.