MAWU and the industrial council

This is a booklet to explain why M A W U has decided to join the Industrial Council for the Iron, Steel Engineering and Metallurgical Industry. In South Africa at present there are 104 Industrial Councils. However, the one for the Iron, Steel, Engineering and Metallurgical Industries is the largest and most important covering nearly 500 000 workers. But only about 100 000 of these workers belong to trade unions. At the Industrial Council the employers and trade unions negotiate an agreement that covers all 500 000 workers. At present on the union side there are 14 trade unions - M A W U will make it 15. But most of these unions are racial unions and what are called craft unions - that is their members only do certain kinds of jobs e.g. boilermakers or electricians etc. On the employer side nearly all the 8400 factories in the industry are members of the employer association SEIFSA. It is SEIFSA - which is the largest and most powerful employer association in South Africa - that negotiates for employers on the Industrial Council