Post Office strikers ‘will be fired’

Post Office in Mill Street in Cape Town. Picture: David Ritchie.

Post Office in Mill Street in Cape Town. Picture: David Ritchie.

Published Nov 22, 2014

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South African Post Office employees who are still on strike have until Monday to return to work or face dismissal.

“We urge all the remaining employees to return to work immediately so we can start rebuilding the Post Office.

“Failure to heed this call will result in the implementation of dismissal procedures with effect from November 24,” cautioned Dr Simo Lushaba, leader of the Post Office administration team.

Spokesman Lungile Lose said failure to strike a deal with Communication Workers Union (CWU) would not impact the recovery plan as most of the members of the other unions were already back at work.

“We can say with certainty that all new mail is delivered immediately when it comes through. Older mail will be cleared by December 16,” said Lose.

“The deal that was truck with the other two unions will also apply to the CWU members who have returned to work,” he said.

Lushaba said while Witpos and Tshwane Mail were impacted the most by the strike, they were now fully operational.

Germiston and OR Tambo International mail centres were not yet at full capacity, but there was some mail going through, he said.

Management finally took a no-nonsense stand to end the protracted two-month casual employees strike, which has caused the service provider major financial losses and backlogs.

Attempts to get the CWU to accept the 6.5 percent increase offered by the employer has failed, but management was determined not to let that prevent dealing with the service backlog that has been accumulated.

The other two unions, the SA Postal and Allied Workers Union (Sapawu) and the Democratic Postal and Communications Union, who collectively represent 61 percent of the workers at bargaining level, accepted the deal last week.

Sapawu president Andrew Sithole said they had accepted the offer in consideration of their members who also had bills to pay.

CWU is alleged to have stuck to their initial demand of a 7.5 percent increase and for workers to receive backdated portions for January, February and March and has refused to consider the financial losses SAPO has found itself in.

The Post Office recorded a net loss of R361.2 million after tax, a considerable increase of 59 percent from the previous financial year and was in desperate need of a bail-out.

“We believe it will be irresponsible for the leadership to accede to demands of CWU owing to our current financial position,” Lushaba added.

“It is absolutely impossible to agree on any guarantees, hence the conditions around our agreement with the other unions.”

Pretoria News Weekend

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