The Motor Industry Staff Association (MISA) has called on the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) to urgently establish a worker-centred End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) regulatory framework to protect existing jobs and create thousands more.
MISA presented its position at a DTIC workshop in Sandton, attended by key automotive stakeholders and a delegation from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, MISA’s Chief Executive Officer: Operations, Martlé Keyter, said.
Export market at risk
An ELV framework is a legal system that ensures vehicles at the end of their lifespan are depolluted, dismantled and recycled. Without one, South Africa risks losing access to its largest export market.
Roughly three out of every four vehicles exported from South Africa go to Europe, where the EU is finalising new vehicle circularity rules requiring recycled materials, circular design and full lifecycle responsibility from manufacturers.
Non-compliance could lock South African vehicles out of Europe, threatening R291 billion in export revenue and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The automotive sector contributes 5.2% to South Africa’s GDP and sustains close to 500 000 formal jobs across the value chain.
MISA, the largest trade union in the retail motor industry, said the ELV framework must not only protect exports but also create decent, formal jobs with enforceable wage floors, collective bargaining coverage and occupational health and safety standards.
‘Workers not an afterthought’
“MISA will not accept a framework that treats workers as an afterthought. Every dismantler, recycler, and technician must have safe working conditions, recognised qualifications and career pathways. This is about protecting livelihoods today and building sustainable jobs for tomorrow,” Keyter said.
MISA also stressed the importance of transition support for informal operators and existing workers, so that formalisation lifts people up rather than locking them out. The union requested Japanese expertise on worker safety, training systems and the viability of small dismantlers, drawing on Japan’s Automobile Recycling Law, which sustains thousands of small enterprises and achieves recovery rates of close to 99%.
Urgent alignment needed
MISA said South Africa’s automotive future depends on urgent alignment with global circular economy rules, and that the ELV framework must protect both the environment and the workers who keep the industry alive.
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