S.African union says may strike in auto industry

Thu Jul 29, 2010 12:25pm GMT

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Some South African auto workers could down tools as early as next week to push for higher wages, a union official said on Thursday.

"We could well give them a notice to strike as soon as next Thursday ... our lawyers are working on it," Castro Ngobese, a spokesman for the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, told Reuters.

The union's demands include 20 percent wage increase.

Thousands of South Africa's public service workers went on a march on Thursday for higher wages in some of the country's major cities after negotiations with the government became deadlocked, a union official said.

<p>A view of the assembly line of Ssangyong Motor, which has been stopped, at its factory in Pyeongtaek, about 70 km (40 miles) south of Seoul, January 12, 2009. REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak</p>

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