NUMSA strike spells bad news for car manufacturers
The NUMSA strike that began this week will have bad effects on the car-world in South Africa. Some car manufacturers may even halt production from the end of next week if the latest National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) strike continues until then.
While some have built up considerable “buffer” stocks of components so they can continue building cars and commercial vehicles during the strike, others have only a few days’ supply.
One of the seven major car manufacturers in South Africa (with 3 of their plants in the Eastern Cape) is threatening to close its operations because of the unstable situation. The chief executive of the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) revealed the news after receiving a memorandum from NUMSA . He stated that he had received a call from ‘the chief executive of a major car manufacturing company based in South Africa’, who had informed him he was under a lot of pressure from his head office in America to close operations down in South Africa and to move them to a more stable country. This, of course, is very bad news for the SA economy, but NUMSA stated that ”Economy can go to hell”.
(Source: Business Day & Herald Live)