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Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant says for there to be stability in the labour market, wage negotiations must start much sooner.
The Minister was speaking to the media following a tour of Volkswagen South Africa's Uitenhage plant on Friday.
Oliphant had wide-ranging talks with VWSA management, led by managing director, Dave Powels.
She said one of the issues on the table was labour instability.
Minister Oliphant said labour and business must find common ground on issues like worker demands and also the approach to collective bargaining.
"We know that they have a multi-agreement and we said in order for us to have stability in industries that they should start early with negotiations, not to wait up until the end of agreement." said Oliphant.
Meanwhile, VWSA managing director, Dave Powels, says during the meeting with Minister Oliphant, they were able to share the labour relations challenges they're experiencing.
In particularly the once every three years wage negotiations.
Powels says they also presented their view on the future, which he says should include a change in attitude on the sides of both business and labour and also changes to labour legislation to create a more efficient legal framework for future labour negotiations to be conducted.
He also agrees that wage negotiations should start a lot sooner than they currently do
Powels also called for a maturing of attitudes between business and labour.
"The strike is a very blunt instrument and negotiations are very delegate matters. I think maturity is required on the side of both parties to engage negotiations with willingness and the speed of which the issue gets dragged into a strike gets reduced, because there is no winners in a strike." said Powels.
