'No quick fix' to steel industry crisis: CEO

"The solutions will help in medium to long term, but unfortunately, they will not be happening today or tomorrow," O'Flaherty told journalists in Johannesburg, following a meeting with unions and government representatives in Pretoria on Friday.

The Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (SEIFSA) was also part of the meeting.

Several metal and steel companies had issued workers with Section 189 notices in the past several weeks, as the industry struggles to survive the tough market conditions, largely blamed on cheap steel imports from China.

The crisis was unprecedented, said Scaw Metals Group chairman Ufikile Khumalo.

"The industry is seeing a crisis, I have never seen such a tough period in my history in the industry…media is talking about a job bloodbath, we are talking about a company bloodbath, especially in smaller companies. These companies are highly indebted and are battling to survive."

He added that the measures undertaken to try save jobs and the economy had come too late, although they were necessary.

"All industry issues not addressed in the past have caught up with us, this intervention will however help medium to long term going forth. We would not be having the steel industry if these interventions did not take place."

The steel industry contributed in sustaining other industries such as mining, construction, energy, infrastructure and automotive, said union Solidarity's Marius Croucamp.

"We explained how these top five industries employ more than eight million workers, contributing some R600 billion to our economy annually. We also pointed out that steel making accounts for approximately 190,000 jobs directly and a further 100,000 jobs through suppliers."

The industry was a core employer in Vanderbijlpark, Newscastle, Germiston, eMalahleni and Nkandla districts, with 75 percent of households in Vanderbijlpark, south of Johannesburg, dependent on the local steel industry for their livelihood, he added.

Unions and the industry agreed on demands presented to government, which included establishing a steel crisis committee, banning of steel scrap exports, monitoring of imports, urgent roll out of infrastructure projects by government and transparency by state enterprises on their capital programmes.

Government, in turn, agreed to implement a 10 percent import tariff which would be signed off next week.

"ArcelorMittal South Africa will submit their first of five anti-dumping [of steel] application by end of August this year and the rest as soon as possible thereafter," said Croucamp.

On retrenchments, the parties said they would continue to work in finding solutions regarding the section 189 retrenchment notices issued to workers and impending ones.

Croucamp said: "Processes being followed by individual companies to find solutions will continue. Government will also facilitate the establishment of labour and business task team on the training lay-off scheme and address bureaucratic processes around the present scheme…and see how this can be used to avoid imminent retrenchments."

National of Union of Metalworkers of SA secretary Irvin Jim said unions had resolved to go all out to help save the industry.

"We will occupy Pretoria [government's Union Buildings] to make sure government moves with speed on these matters. The fact that we took a step to talk to everyone that something must be done," he said.

The union demanded that government buy back its former enterprise, Iscor, now known as ArcelorMittal SA.

"Iscor was owned by government in the past…why not consider taking it back? China is protecting itself and jobs there, and recently devaluated its currency twice…China is protecting its currency and its economy, why are we dilly dallying around these urgent matters?" he said. - ANA