The ongoing debate around collective bargaining and the extension of bargaining council agreements has once again raised important questions about the future of labour relations in South Africa’s metals and engineering industry.
While differing views on these matters are both inevitable and healthy, the discussion should remain grounded in fact. At its heart lies a simple question: what creates the certainty and stability necessary for businesses to invest, grow and create jobs?
South Africa’s Constitution protects freedom of association and the right to engage in collective bargaining. Employers are free to join the employer organisation they believe best represents their interests, just as employees are free to choose the trade union that they believe best serves theirs. These freedoms are fundamental to our labour relations system.
What is equally important is that collective bargaining remains credible, representative and capable of delivering outcomes that provide certainty to both employers and employees.
The wage increases applicable for the 2026/ 2027-year form part of a three-year agreement concluded in 2024 following negotiations between representative employer organisations and trade unions within the Metals and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council.
The agreement was reached during a period of significant economic pressure for the industry. Yet despite these challenges, the sector has experienced a relatively stable industrial relations environment over the past three years. Employers have been able to plan with greater certainty and employees have benefited from a structured collective bargaining process. This stability has not occurred by chance. It has been the result of engagement, negotiation and compromise between organised business and organised labour.
Much has been said about representivity. The facts are clear.
The 2025 membership verification exercise conducted by the Bargaining Council confirmed that the SEIFSA Associations remain the largest employer grouping within the Council, accounting for 56,9% of all employees employed by employers represented on the Council. By comparison, the next largest employer organisation represents 21,5% of those employees. The same verification exercise confirmed that the trade unions party to the Council represent 53,2% of the employees employed by employers represented on the Council.
These are not opinions. They are independently verified facts. They demonstrate that collective agreements concluded within the Bargaining Council are negotiated by parties that satisfy the representivity requirements contemplated by the Labour Relations Act.
None of this means that collective bargaining should be beyond scrutiny. Debate around representivity, exemptions, economic impact and the extension of agreements is both legitimate and necessary. Indeed, robust debate is essential if institutions are to remain relevant and responsive to changing economic realities.
What should concern the industry, however, is not the existence of debate. It is the erosion of certainty.
Businesses invest where there is predictability. Employees prosper where there is stability. Industries grow when employers and trade unions engage through recognised and credible institutions capable of resolving differences and reaching agreements.
The courts have been called upon on numerous occasions to consider challenges relating to collective bargaining and the extension of agreements. Those matters have followed the legal processes available within our constitutional framework and the courts have reached their conclusions accordingly.
A further review application concerning the extension of the 2021 to 2024 Main Agreement is expected to be heard before the Labour Court. SEIFSA welcomes the opportunity for the matter to be considered through the appropriate legal channels and looks forward to placing the relevant facts before the Court.
Regardless of differing views, the broader objective should remain the same: a labour relations environment that promotes certainty, stability, investment, employment and sustainable growth in the metals and engineering sector.
In an economy facing significant challenges, these are outcomes that should unite rather than divide us.
