Cape Town - South African Transport and Allied Workers (Satawu) members may be back at work after the Transnet strike officially ended on Wednesday night, but Satawu has said it has yet to reach a wage agreement with the company.
Union spokesperson Amanda Tshemese said Satawu wouldn’t sign the revised offer signed by United National Transport Union (Untu), as it went against the workers’ mandate and interests.
“The fact that Untu has signed does not necessarily mean that Satawu has to agree to everything.”
Tshemese said going forward it would be difficult for there to be trust between the two unions again, seeing as this was the second time the Untu leadership had broken their trust. The first was during the 2010 strike.
“We will sit at the same table, but how can you trust someone who has broken your trust twice. Clearly it was deliberate.”
She said both unions had promised their workers they wouldn’t agree to anything less than 7.6%. Yet, Untu had gone ahead and signed a deal that saw workers receive a 6% increase for year one and three, and a 5.5% hike in year two.
“Satawu is against retrenchments and privatisation of the entity. We will continue negotiating with the employer and if the employer doesn’t put the workers and their needs first, the offer will remain unsigned by Satawu.”
On Wednesday evening, ordinary members convinced Satawu’s national office bearers to call off the 12-day strike following Monday’s signing of an agreement with workers affiliated to Untu.
Meanwhile, Untu general secretary, Cobus van Vuuren, said the majority of their workers had mandated them to accept the salary increase offered by Transnet and that the union had secured “a reasonable increase for our members and the Transnet employees at large”.
Finance and Economic Opportunities MEC Mireille Wenger said over the last 14 days, a significant backlog had built up at the country’s ports. Industry experts said that it would take anywhere between six and 10 weeks to clear this backlog.