THE National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has denied claims by the Road Accident Fund (RAF) that the union initiated the retrenchment process.
Numsa in a statement today, 29 September, said it was RAF management that attempted to get the union to rubber stamp their strategy to cut over 400 jobs through a dodgy restructuring process, which was outside of the CCMA process.
Numsa’s general-secretary Irvin Jim said RAF was using the union as a scapegoat.
“Numsa rejects with contempt attempts by RAF management to scapegoat the union for the Section 189 process which is underway at RAF.
“We have noted the communication issued by RAF management, the acting corporate support officer Ian Barriel and RAF CEO Collins Letsoalo, where they falsely claim that Numsa initiated Section 189 at the company. That is not true at all,” he said.
“RAF management are lying when they claim that they put measures in place to ‘mitigate the effects of Section 189’. RAF management began contemplating restructuring as early as 2020 when they contracted PWC.
“Since then, discussions have been taking place behind the scenes to restructure the company. They began to implement this strategy around June 2022,” said Jim.
Earlier this month, RAF issued staff members with Section 189 notices, which stated that it would embark on a consultative process as a starting point to the retrenchments.
“The previous operating model has proved to be unsustainable and did not enable the organisation to carry out its legislative mandate effectively,” Jim said.
He said the process was unlawful.
He claimed that RAF management was already targeting individuals outside the bargaining unit to accept their voluntary severance packages.
“This is why we had to intervene to ensure that workers’ rights would not be undermined in the process,” he said.
He said in the meantime, Numsa was preparing for the first day of the Section 189 consultation with the CCMA which will be on 10 October.
He alleged that RAF was attempting to justify job losses because they want to introduce an automated system that some have speculated may cost them almost R1 billion, with no guarantee that the system will work as efficiently, or even deliver the same outcomes as workers.
“The facts are that RAF management had already taken a decision to retrench at least 472 employees when it declared that some positions would be made redundant because of the implementation of the new, untested Integrated Claims Management System, (ICMS),” said Jim.
He said Numsa was also opposed to the closure of RAF offices in North West, Mpumalanga and Limpopo.
“The retrenchments at RAF is another example of how the ANC government continues to fail the working class.
The purpose of state-owned enterprises is to enable government to create jobs. But under this administration of Cyril Ramaphosa, we have seen massive job cuts which will only deepen poverty and unemployment,” said Jim.
