Steel Industry: Avoid the Seifsa snare...

…you are an employer who can afford to employ an untrained, uneducated, inexperienced entry level employee at a cost exceeding R11 000 pm [Eleven Thousand Rand] (direct and indirect costs); or

– if you can’t afford this cost structure, but nevertheless (inexplicably) decide to join Seifsa  (whose member employer bodies are bound by this arrangement) and then hypocritically apply for an exemption from the same costs you’ve agreed to on the basis of financial unaffordability; and

– if you, notwithstanding the unaffordability, find it justifiable to conspire (with others cut from similar cloth) to extend this unaffordable, business crippling, job destroying arrangement to other employers, which can’t afford it either and who never agreed to it …

… then you are a typical Seifsa employer.

HOWEVER, IF YOU DISTANCE YOURSELF FROM THIS ARRANGEMENT – why don’t you just join NEASA?

NEASA does not promote the payment of abusive wages. What we stand for is the right of employers to pay wages they can afford and, based on merit, want to pay. That is the only sustainable wage arrangement that exists. 

For almost 10 years NEASA has been fighting for this right of employers. We have spent millions of Rands on this cause. This fight isn’t over though; it is a continuous battle. 

WHY ARE WE EXPOSING SEIFSA ON THIS ISSUE?

We do this because of the risk to unsuspecting and vulnerable employers. 

The motive behind this is simply to caution SMME’s against being sucked into an uncontrolled cost spiral, which is the result of Seifsa’s weak, even fraudulent wage strategies and conduct over many years. On a daily basis we see the damage it has caused to business. The overall damage it has caused to the Industry over many years is there for all to see.

WHY NOW?

Seifsa has been touting a seminar on the 2017-2020 Seifsa/Numsa agreement purportedly aimed at educating unsuspecting employers on the benefits of aligning with this particular agreement.

It is however not a difficult task to discern the real motivation behind this “educational” exercise, which is designed to ensnare employers into Seifsa membership.

This in itself might seem somewhat innocuous on the face of it but what they are offering employers is the opportunity to bind themselves into an unaffordable agreement, coupled with the opportunity to apply for exemption from this agreement, to which such an employer was never bound to from the outset. 

In which reality could this possibly make sense?

Kind Regards