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Strike at Transnet looms as unions reject pay offer

Wendell Roelf

Union leaders at state-owned freight logistics group Transnet say they plan to strike after their members rejected a 4% acrossthe-board pay hike offer.

The United National Transport Union (Untu) and the SA Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) said their members rejected the offer of one percentage point higher than Transnet had put on the table.

“We have just sent communication now to the bargaining council to say we’ve had quite a bit of response and the response was to reject the offer,” John Pereira, deputy general secretary of Untu, said on Thursday.

“Both unions have rejected the mediator’s recommendation of 4% … the unions want one thing only and that is a certificate to strike,” Satawu general secretary Jack Mazibuko said.

He said the parties were in Transnet bargaining council pay talks since March. “But we couldn’t reach consensus among ourselves because the employer was initially offering a zero percent increase. The negotiations deadlocked after three rounds of talks. We then roped in an independent mediator to help us broker a deal.”

Satawu, with about 18,000 Transnet members, has been demanding a one-year 15% pay rise across the board and a moratorium on retrenchment for that year.

Mazibuko said the mediator proposed that the parties settle on a 4% pay rise, which is below April’s 4.4% inflation rate. The Reserve Bank sees inflation averaging 4.2% in 2021, 4.4% in 2022 and 4.5% in 2023.

“We took the 4% proposal to our members. Unfortunately it was rejected, so we didn’t have any option but to request a strike certificate from the mediator. We expect the nonresolution certificate within seven days from now,” said Mazibuko.

Transnet said it believed the nonbinding offer recommended by the mediator, though unaffordable, was acceptable as a means to arrive at a quick settlement, given the “current operational and financial challenges the company continues to face.

“The demand by the unions is simply unaffordable in its current form,” Transnet said. Any solution must have due regard to the company’s sustainability.

SA faces pay strikes from the public sector workers. Steve Harris, general secretary of Untu, the majority Transnet union with more than 26,000 workers, said his union had been demanding a 7% pay rise.

“We rejected the mediator’s proposal for a 4% wage increase, even though Transnet indicated they are willing to implement it,” said Harris. “We have now requested a strike certificate from the mediator. So, let’s see what happens.”

The certificate will allow the two largest unions at Transnet, with more than 75% of the 48,000 staff, to give the company 48 hours’ notice before embarking on a protected strike.

A long port and rail strike could affect exports of cars, grain and minerals as SA tries to restart its economy. “We will decide when is the best time to strike so we have maximum impact,” Pereira said.

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2021-06-11T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-11T07:00:00.0000000Z

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