Durban - If you had planned a school excursion to the KZN Sharks Board this week, you will need to change your plans. On Wednesday, the board announced that they have taken a decision to cancel all shark dissection shows and boat tours which were scheduled to take place this week.
According to a statement on their Facebook page, the decision follows on from the industrial strike action undertaken by some employees.
"For saftey reasons, this had led to the closure of all gates of the KZN Sharks Board premises, including the head office in Umhlanga No.1 A Herrwood Drive, Umhlanga. The closure of the KZN Sharks Board premises is from August 14, 2018 until further notice. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may have caused you," the statement read.
The organisation has been hit by protest action in recent weeks. The Daily News previously reported that workers aligned to The South African Liberating Public Sector Workers Union embarked on a strike earlier this month. At the time, workers removed shark nets from some beaches along the Durban coastline. However, a few days later the nets were reinstalled.
This week, salary negotiations deadlocked.
The workers are demanding, among other things, a 15% pay increase across the board. Speaking to the Daily News sister publication, The Mercury, employee spokesperson, Mxolisi Cekwayo, said the workers were not happy with the employer’s offers.
“We said that the salaries of the lowest-earning workers who are currently earning R6 100 should be adjusted to a minimum of R10 000. They agreed to that, and now we are saying that the second group currently earning between R9 000 and R10 000 should also get adjustments to push them to R13 000, and the employer does not agree,” Cekwayo said.
The workers have also threatened not to service the shark nets until all their demands were met.