Following the signing of the Settlement Agreement and the commitment contained therein to prepare a Consolidated Main Agreement for submission to the Department of Labour, with a request that it be gazetted and extended to non-parties, a Drafting Committee comprising of representatives of the Parties assisted by their respective legal representatives has completed this task.
The Consolidated Main Agreement incorporates all the amendments agreed upon between the parties during the 2011-2014 and 2014-2017 Main Agreement negotiations and the recently-concluded amendments arising out of last year’s Main Agreement negotiations.
An important legal requirement in preparing a collective agreement for gazettal and extension is the incorporation of the parties’ industry membership details. This requirement, contained in Section 49 of the Labour Relations Act (LRA), requires the Bargaining Council to work collaboratively with all the parties and the Department of Labour so that the results of the membership verification report can be incorporated into the request for the gazettal and extension of the Main Agreement. To view the Determination by the Department of Labour, please click here.
At a Bargaining Council Management Committee Meeting held today, the 2017-2020 Consolidated Main Agreement – concluded between the 21 SEIFSA-affiliated Employer Associations and the industry’s five Trade Unions – was adopted, in line with the Bargaining Council’s Constitution and Section 32 of the Labour Relations Act, as a Collective Agreement concluded in a Bargaining Council, with a request that the Minister of Labour be petitioned to extend the agreement to all non-party employers and employees from a date to be determined by the Minister.
Once gazetted, the Main Agreement will set new minimum standards for all employers and employees in the metals and engineering industries.