Two hundred Lear Corporation workers who make Mercedes-Benz AMG sedans car seats downed tools on Monday over a wage dispute.
They also want the company to do away with labour brokers.
The workers who sang and danced outside the East London factory in West Bank in front of plant manager Kevin Scott, accused the firm of exploiting them.
According to the workers, Lear Corporation manufactures and supplies 900 car seats to Mercedes-Benz South Africa for the production of AMG sedans on a weekly basis. The striking workers included assemblers of components, machine operators, end-product inspectors and truck drivers.
They work three shifts on a 24-hour cycle producing 180 seats per day, said National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (Numsa) shop steward Sandi Nomjila on Monday.
Scott, who watched the strike with four other managers from inside the security guardroom, declined to comment. Scott told the Dispatch: “We don't have a comment on the matter.”
The EFF joined the workers in their strike on Monday.
In an interview on the sidelines of the protest, EFF regional spokesperson Xolile Mboni said: “We would like to issue a warning to big companies like MBSA who continue to trade with companies like this one that don’t comply with labour laws that we will shut them down.”
Among a litany of allegations made against Lear, Nomjila accused the firm of refusing to adhere to the constitutional court ruling on labour brokers. In July the court ruled that a worker placed by a labour broker at a company becomes that company’s employee with no contractual ties to the labour broker after a period of three months.
Nomjila said there were some workers who had been working for the company for five to 10 years but were still under labour brokers.
“Even when you get absorbed by this company from a labour broker, this company still pays you the peanuts you were getting from the labour broker.
“The rate from brokers is low because they first deduct their fees,” Nombila said.
A labour broker is a person or company that exists by providing labourers to client companies.
Despite working at the client company site, the workers are the employees of the labour broker, not the client.
This means that the labour broker is responsible for all the admin related to the employee, such as payroll, taxes, and leave.
MBSA spokesperson Thato Mntambo said: “Mercedes-Benz South Africa is aware of the strike that occurred at Lear Corporation today.
“MBSA has been in discussion with Lear and has been made aware of the supplier’s efforts to work towards an amicable solution to its employees’ concerns.”..