Postal workers demand fair wages

Published Aug 26, 2009

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By Jauhara Khan

Brandishing posters calling for the scrapping of "apartheid salaries", striking South African Post Office (SAPO) workers marched down Dr Pixley KaSeme (West) Street to the Durban Post Office on Wednesday to hand their employers a memorandum of demands.

The workers downed tools last Wednesday. Prominent among their demands is that salary anomalies between black and white employees, which they say have existed since the apartheid administration, be addressed.

According to Communication Workers' Union (CWU) spokesperson Thami Mzileni, 96 percent of all post offices in the province had not been in operation since the strike began.

Workers representing post office branches in Pietermaritzburg, Ladysmith, Malvern, Umlazi, KwaMashu and Mobeni turned up for the march.

Mail processor Colleen Abraham has worked for the post office for 18 years. She said the wage discrepancies had been in existence since the early 1990s. "We are all mail processors here, but my white counterparts are getting greater basic salaries than us. We all want the same pay; we want the post office to do away with these apartheid salaries. We will continue fighting for this."

Another marcher said they were also unhappy about the post office's use of labour brokers to employ new workers. "It is like the slave trade; casual workers are abused by labour brokers. We want them to do away with this, as well as the apartheid salary gap."

SAPO chief operating officer John Wentzel said on Wednesday that as the strike entered its sixth day "mail remains the most severely affected; however, some mail delivery has resumed".

"Approximately seven percent of offices have been forced to close. This is higher than yesterday (Tuesday), but is attributed to the planned marches today (Wednesday) to the various regional offices to hand over memoranda."

Wentzel said that Postbank operations continued unaffected and that the principle of "no work, no pay" continued to apply.

- Read more in Thursday's editions of The Mercury newspaper.

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