Thousands of South African port and rail workers will down tools over a wage dispute on Thursday, the United National Transport Union (UNTU) has announced.
UNTU General Secretary, Cobus van Vuuren, told Freight News on Tuesday that the union’s planned strike would go ahead from 12:01am on 6 October, despite Transnet’s last bid conciliation approach to the CCMA this week.
UNTU issued a strike notice circular to its members on Monday in which it said that despite the union’s best efforts, Transnet had not presented a salary increase offer that was aligned with its members’ mandates. The union represents at least 33 000 of Transnet’s 35 000 employees.
“Transnet has maintained its 1.5% across-the-board increase offer and has tried to sell it on the basis of promises of back pay for the period of 1 April 2022 to 30 September 2023,” UNTU said.
The union said Transnet had also offered a once-off R10 000 payment if members accepted the salary increase proposal.
Transnet spokesperson, Ayanda Shezi, said the employer had applied to the CCMA to convene “conciliation discussions” over the current wage negotiations.
“This follows the union’s rejection yesterday (Monday) of a new offer that the company firmly believes is fair and reasonable given the current financial and operational challenges,” said Shezi.
She said the improved offer for both bargaining unit and management employees included:
- A 1.5% increase on guaranteed pay, effective from 1 April 2022.
- As a result of the company’s cash position, the amount due from 1 April 2022 to 30 September 2022 will be paid to employees over three months, at the end of January, February, and March 2023.
- At the end of October 2022, Transnet will pay the new salary with the 1.5% increase.
- A once-off ex-gratia payment of R10 000 before tax, will be made at the end of April 2023.
Shezi said management had re-emphasised its commitment to save jobs “and the latest offer made, which is a R950 million increase on the current salary bill, does not result in any foreseeable job losses”.
“Transnet has consistently made the point that its wage bill currently makes up over 66% of monthly operating costs. This is not sustainable, particularly given the current operational and financial performance,” said Shezi.
“Transnet has urged unions, and Transnet workers, to accept its offer as the best possible deal that can be made right now. The company remains optimistic about finding a solution so that it can continue the business of turning Transnet around for the benefit of the company and the South African economy,” she said.
However, Van Vuuren said Transnet’s latest request to the CCMA to appoint a senior commissioner to continue negotiations, did not impact the union’s decision to embark on industrial action.
“We embarked on wage negotiations and there was a week’s deadlock. We declared a dispute and a CCMA commissioner tried to facilitate a resolution but Transnet would not move on their offer – only by 0.5%. A certificate of non-resolution was issued on 23 August by the Commissioner and we have applied a 30-day cooling off period where Transnet could relook at their numbers,” Van Vuuren said.
He said it was only when the union issued a circular to members saying that if Transnet did not come back with a reasonable offer by 3 October that it would issue a strike notice, that Transnet approached the CCMA for conciliation with a more senior commissioner.
“But that does not impact on our bid to proceed on protected industrial action on 6 October,” Van Vuuren said.
