The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) condemns the ongoing retrenchments at Dana Spicer Axle in Kariega, Nelson Mandela Bay, where more than 60 workers have reportedly already lost their jobs through a Section 189 retrenchment process. These dismissals represent yet another devastating attack on the working class in a region already suffering catastrophic unemployment and economic collapse.
Dana Spicer Axle is a key supplier to major automotive corporations including Isuzu, Ford and Toyota, and operates within a broader automotive manufacturing chain that has increasingly shifted the burden of economic instability onto workers while executives and multinational shareholders continue to protect profits.
Workers organized under NUMSA have raised serious concerns regarding the manner in which the retrenchments were conducted, including allegations that workers were abruptly informed of their dismissals, pressured into signing documentation without adequate representation, and offered severance packages that are insufficient to sustain their families. The EFF stands firmly with the workers of Dana Spicer Axle and condemns the continued deindustrialisation of Nelson Mandela Bay and the Eastern Cape. Reports indicate that more than 6,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the metro over the past 18 months, with the automotive components sector being among the hardest hit. Just this year Goodyear South Africa announced the closure of its manufacturing operations in Kariega, placing more than 900 workers at risk, while Ford South Africa issued retrenchment notices affecting hundreds of workers at its Struandale operations in Gqeberha.
This crisis exposes the failure of South Africa’s industrial policy and the consequences of allowing local manufacturing to collapse under the pressure of cheap imports, declining localisation, and weak state intervention. While automotive corporations continue to benefit from public incentives and the labour of South African workers, communities are being destroyed through mass retrenchments and economic abandonment.
The EFF rejects the logic that workers must pay for declining profits and fluctuating orders. Workers are not disposable machinery that can simply be discarded whenever corporations seek to preserve profit margins.
The situation at Dana Spicer Axle must also be understood as part of a broader assault on industrial employment across the Eastern Cape, where communities built around automotive manufacturing are being plunged deeper into poverty. The EFF therefore calls for an immediate moratorium on further retrenchments and demands urgent intervention by government to protect jobs, support localization, and defend domestic manufacturing capacity.
The EFF has formally written to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Trade, Industry and Competition, calling on him to urgently summon Dana Spicer Axle, NUMSA, Isuzu, Ford, Volkswagen, and Toyota to a meeting aimed at halting the retrenchments, defending workers, and addressing the deepening collapse of manufacturing employment in Nelson Mandela Bay.
The EFF first contested elections in 2014, securing 6.4% of the vote in the national elections.
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