BMW South African production plant closed down due to worker strike

Autoworkers in South Africa are demanding a 15% increase in their wages. BMW workers in its local South African plant has closed down yesterday and will open when the strikes are over.

BMW and other car companies (Volkswagen AG, Toyota Motor Corp., Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., Nissan Motor Co., and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz division) have already offered a 7% increase in wages for one year — quite reasonable for the inflation rate of 4.2% last July.In addition, workers were offered and an increase equal to the consumer price inflation for the following two years. Negotiations have been going on for two months now, but to no avail.

However, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), which represents 31,000 autoworkers, have not agreed to this offer. They now demand BMW and other automobile manufacturers to sign a one-year agreement that they will receive 15% wag increase — more than triple the inflation rate.

South Africa is the largest automobile market in the region. BMW spokesman in South Africa, Guy Kilfoil admits that they cannot build cars while workers are on strike and the plant closed down. They are still hoping that this issue will be resolved soon. And automakers have agreed to engage in more negotiations.

This will have a very big effect in the South African auto industry because they are just recovering from a two-year low sales period. The government of South Africa are also relying on the automobile industry to help their economy. The South African auto industry is expected to produce up to 443,000 units this year, a great increase from the 374,000 units produced last year. However, this incident will definitely have a big impact in changing those numbers.
Source: Autonews