Johannesburg - The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has slapped the government and the SA Post Office (Sapo) with a seven-day ultimatum to address its demands or face a full-blown indefinite strike.
The threat comes as Sapo’s financial strain has come under the spotlight after it posted a R1.5 billion loss in the past financial year, months after it rallied from a crippling five-month strike led by the union.
Read: Post Office workers begin two-day strike
CWU general secretary Aubrey Tshabalala said the union had explored all avenues to find an amicable solution to its demands to no avail.
Tshabalala said the union wanted wage increases from 2014, back payments from the past two years, temporary employees to be made permanent and “equal pay, equal work”.
He said the CWU planned to lead thousands of its members in a march in Gauteng today to the Union Buildings in Pretoria and hand over a memorandum of demands to the ANC headquarters at Luthuli House.
“If the Post Office does not respond in the specified time frame we will go on an indefinite strike. We are giving them from tomorrow seven working days to address our demands. From there the Post Office will be shut down,” Tshabalala told journalists during a press conference held at its Johannesburg headquarters yesterday.
Sapo has been hurt by management blunders and a five-month strike in 2014, which led to the decline in mail and damaged delivery services including Unisa examination papers.
Similar marches are planned in Durban today.
CWU marched in Cape Town yesterday after serving the Post Office with a 48-hour strike notice.
Tshabalala, argued that public officials and employees of struggling state-owned enterprises, including SAA, had received their salary increases.
“Our members are tired of being casuals for the past 22 years without benefits; our members can no longer continue to fork out money from their pockets to fix their working tools, like bicycles, and to buy workplace toiletries. Our members are tired of empty promises,” he said.
Sapo told Parliament in March that it was currently facing a serious cash flow problem and owed creditors R900 million, while it was losing R125m every month.
Public protector Thuli Madonsela also nailed Sapo for its poor financial management and in a report released in February found that the acquisition of a 10-year lease for a building in Centurion to house the Sapo headquarters was “tainted by procurement irregularities and corruption”.
CWU president Clyde Mervin said the union should not be held responsible for Sapo’s financial problems.
“The CWU cannot be held accountable for financial mess at Sapo. The financial situation is of their own doing,” he said.
The Post Office downplayed the impact of the marches, saying there was no noticeable industrial action reported in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga or the Eastern Cape. It said all branches nationally were fully operational, except for four outlets in Gauteng, which had been closed as a cautionary safety measure.
In addition, operations were normal in the Western Cape and the Free State yesterday, with less than 100 employees from each of the provinces participating in the strike.
Communicating
Mark Barnes, the Sapo chief executive, said the company continued communicating with all the unions and employees about its commitment to resolving any employee issues.
“As the SA Post Office service and delivery standards continue to recover and as ongoing efforts are made to resolve its difficult financial position, it is critical that all of us hold this balance and maintain stability, especially at this time when we are finalising our plans around raising funding,” Barnes said.
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