General Motors Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and other carmakers will lose production of more than 2,100 vehicles a day in South Africa after halting output because of a strike that began yesterday.
About half of that output is destined for export markets, the Automobile Manufacturers Employers Organization, based in the capital Pretoria, said in a statement today.
Toyota, the world’s biggest automaker, and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG shut their plants in South Africa yesterday after workers, who are demanding a 15 percent pay increase, went on strike. General Motors, which stopped its main assembly lines at the Port Elizabeth plant yesterday, had limited operations today, the company said in an e-mailed statement.
Union demands are “unrealistic and do not take into account the highly competitive nature of the global auto industry, as well as our relative lack of competitiveness when comparing our costs to auto manufacturers in other countries,” the employers’ organization said.
South Africa’s car and car-parts industry accounts for about 6 percent of gross domestic product and is the country’s biggest manufacturing exporter.
Carmakers have offered to increase pay by 7 percent in a three-year wage agreement. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa wants a one-year agreement and increases in bonuses and sick-leave pay.
‘Tough Negotiations’
“The total cost implications of the NUMSA demands are in excess of 30 percent,” employers said. “Employers remain open to engaging NUMSA on an urgent basis to ensure that we achieve a balanced agreement.”
Nissan Motor Co. shut its Rosslyn plant, located outside of Pretoria, with a production loss of 220 vehicles a day, spokeswoman Pat Senne said by e-mail. Toyota has shut its Durban plant as 5,728 workers went on strike there and at the national distribution center in Gauteng province, spokesman Leo Kok said in an e-mailed response to questions. The carmaker is losing 520 units a day because of the closure, he said.
Union General-Secretary Irvin Jim said the strike will continue tomorrow unless an agreement is reached in talks currently taking place with employers.
“We’re in tough negotiations,” Jim said. “There’s nothing we agree on at the moment.”
