THE National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) called on its more than 200,000 engineering and metalworker members to down tools for higher wages today.

The stoppage will start on Tuesday, declared South Africa’s largest union.

"We are going to strike, we are going to bring the industry to a standstill," said Numsa deputy general secretary Karl Cloete.

The union's national executive committee met yesterday and "agreed to the decision from our members to embark on an indefinite strike action, beginning on July 1, 2014."

Mr Cloete said that wage negotiations in the sector were deadlocked, with workers demanding a 12 per cent wage increase, which they had reduced from an initial demand of 15 per cent.

“Numsa is finally ready to take to the streets and withdraw its labour at an unprecedented level,” said union general secretary Irvin Jim in Johannesburg.

A large number of Numsa's 220,000 members are employed in the key car manufacturing and components sector, which had already suffered stoppages last year.

Other sectors due to be affected by the strike are the electrical engineering, telecommunications and plastic fabrication industries.

Numsa also called for a stoppage at Eskom, the state-owned power generator, saying that negotiations were deadlocked over its proposed wage increase of 5.6 per cent for its 10,000 staff.

The union said the strike call was "part of a tactic to exert organisational pressure on the bosses to return to the table and present an offer acceptable to our members."