South Africa's metal workers accept offer to end 28-day strike

 South African striking engineering and metals workers have accepted an improved wage offer to end the country's largest-ever labour stoppage, their union said Monday.
Representatives for the roughly 200,000 workers who downed tools on July 1, said the lowest-paid worker will get a 10 percent pay increase each year for the next three years.
"The settlement offer has been overwhelmingly and unanimously accepted by our members," Irvin Jim, general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), told reporters.
Workers will return to their posts on Tuesday, he said.
The NUMSA -- the country's largest union, representing workers across several sectors -- had originally sought wage increases of up to 15 percent in a one-year deal.
The strike hit an estimated 10,500 companies across South Africa worth an aggregate four percent of economic output, and threatened to push the country further towards recession.
The economy shrank in the first quarter amid a five-month-long strike in the country's platinum mines that was only resolved last week.