BMW South Africa settles industrial action with factory workers – UPDATE

UPDATE, October 22: Following weeks of industrial action, South Africa’s metalworkers union has accepted a three-year wage increase.

According to Reuters, the union agreed to a rise of between five and six per cent in the first year, with smaller increments in the following years.

The union issued a statement urging its members to return to work no later than Monday.

Our original story is below.

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October 20: Employees at a BMW factory in South Africa have gone on strike, impacting the production of X3 models.

The country’s metalworkers union has taken industrial action over a wage dispute with the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (SEIFSA), according to news outlet Reuters, with a “final offer” rejected following a week of talks.

More than 150,000 metalworkers went on strike earlier this month, shuttering assembly lines throughout the country and taking to the street.

Early last week, BMW South Africa advised around 700 cars had been affected by the action. It’s unclear what the tally has risen to over the past week, but a spokesperson for BMW Australia has confirmed to WhichCar there is "no impact to the delivery timing of BMW X3s manufactured in South Africa for the Australian market".

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Despite both the union and the industry body conceding ground during the most recent negotiations, they were unable to agree on a way forward, local newspaper The Citizen reports.

It’s believed the industrial action has yet to make its way to other South African new-car factories run by Ford, Volkswagen, or Toyota.

"We expect more OEM assembly lines to be impacted if the strike continues into next week, due to a lack of production in parts of the supply chain," a spokesperson for an auto industry body told The Economic Times.

Australia imported more than 9500 cars from South Africa in 2020, just behind the Czech Republic and ahead of France.