Catherwood LibraryILR School

More than a quarter of a million South African metal and engineering workers have downed tools across the country. Trade unions said workers had walked out in a protest over pay and a skills shortage in the country. The indefinite strike is expected to bring production at more than 9,000 companies to a standstill. The walkout comes just two weeks after the end of a month-long strike by public sector workers which closed most of the country's schools and hospitals. The civil servant strike is believed to have been the biggest industrial action since the end of apartheid in 1994. The wave of strikes sweeping the country has exposed the sharp division between the ruling African National Congress and the labor movement which has accused the government of promoting big business at the expense of poor South Africans.