Wage negotiations between Transnet and organised labour were once again postponed during a meeting at the Transnet Bargaining Council yesterday.
The South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu), United National Transport Union (Untu) and Transnet all agreed to postpone negotiations to April 12.
This as Untu and Satawu were not ready to respond to Transnet’s revised final wage offer provided to both parties last week due to the public holidays.
An agreement should already have been reached since Untu and Satawu insisted that their demands be implemented from April 1, 2018, to ensure that employees did not have to wait for back pay.
However, wage negotiations had to be postponed since Satawu was unable to obtain mandates on the offer from its members in time.
While both labour unions were looking for a 12% wage increase, the current offer stands at 6.5% for 2018, 7.25% for 2019 and 7.5% for 2020 with no retrenchments for the next three years.
Transnet has said that if both parties do not reach an agreement by the new date, the state entity will revert to its previous offer.
