Concerned employees of Cast Products SA affiliated to the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) are seeking Ministerial intervention so that their jobs may be saved at the foundry-manufacturing company which has plants in Germiston and Boksburg.
The concerned workers marched to the offices of Minster of Trade and Industry Parks Tau at Sunnyside in Tshwane on Tuesday to deliver their memorandum, wherein they raised their concerns regarding possible job losses while at the same time calling for the Minister to intervene as his department is a stakeholder in this matter.
According to David Ntombela who is a member of NUMSA, Cast Products has been under business rescue since 2022 and the company will either be put on sale or have a strategic partner in due course.
“But the process of either selling or finding a strategic partner has been taking long and in the meantime workers are subjected to intermittent temporary closures of the company, short time work, and non-payment of salaries,” said Ntombela who in the process revealed that the last time employees went to work was in the second week of February this year.
“This scenario has dire consequences for workers as they no longer get paid at all, or when they eventually get paid those salaries are paid long after the due date and this affects our credit records and many other financial commitments that we have as workers,” lamented Ntombela.
“We have now taken the decision to come to the Department of Trade and Industry ( DTI) to seek intervention because Cast Products SA supplies strategic companies like Transnet, Eskom and mining companies with foundry material and if it does not operate then the said industries and companies will be negatively affected and jobs there will also be at risk,band this scenario is not good at all given the high unemployment statistics prevalent in the country,” he said.
“We are appealing to Minister Parks Tau to speak to all stakeholders like Industrial Development Corporation ( IDC) Cast Products, Transnet and Eskom to speed-up the process of either putting the company on sale or finding the so-called strategic partner for it,” he said.
“As a government-owned financing institution IDC must provide the necessary funds so that we can go back to work like before and earn salaries,” he said.
Ntombela said Cast Products employs around 800 people and that they had been promised that operations at the plants of the company would resume at the beginning of April but it is already the second week of April now and no operations have resumed.
“We are concerned that the delay in resuming operations at Cast Products SA plants will result in customers which are currently supplied with products by the company no longer being there when the company eventually resumes operations,band this will mean the company won’t have anyone to sell its products to,” said an aggrieved Ntombela.
“I will make sure that the memorandum delivered to this department reaches the Minister’s office as requested and hopefully the Minister will go through it and expedite the request as outlined herein,” said Acting DDG within the financing unit if the Department of Trade and Industry Justice Ngwenya.
He said in his opinion the request made by Cast Products employees is reasonable and that Minister Parks Tau would respond to it within the ambits of the law.
Copy of a memorandum:
Tshwane Talks readers have been able to read stories in this publication for free for over two years now. We still want our readers to access our stories for free, but we are asking those among our readers who can afford it to contribute at least R30 a month to cover some of the costs of publishing this independent, non-aligned online newspaper which gives a voice to all sectors of society irrespective of race, colour, creed, religion, or political affiliation. You may make your contribution by depositing at least R30 a month into Tshwane Talks' bank account. Details are as follows:
Bank Details
Bank: Standard Bank
Account Number: 10225548834
Account Type: Cheque Account