Union wants Post Office casuals to down tools

THE Communication Workers Union (CWU) wants hundreds of South African Post Office (Sapo) temporary workers to down tools tomorrow in protest against labour brokers — a mere week after workers appeared to accept an interim solution believed to have ended a four-month long strike.

The one-day industrial action could again hamper postal delivery to homes and businesses yet to see a return to normal service. The CWU, which is affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade Unions, is the biggest union at Sapo, with the South African Postal Workers Union having a smaller representation.

Last week the representatives of more than 1 000 postal workers, who did not belong to a union, but were backed by the CWU, seemingly agreed to return to work after reaching an “interim solution” which included the phasing out of labour brokers over three months. Thereafter, workers would have been employed as casuals directly by the Post Office, which was to establish a task team to look at employing them permanently in the next financial year that starts in April.

Yesterday the CWU

said

it rejected the interim plan altogether, saying many temporary workers failed to return to work despite their representatives accepting the interim proposal.

Sapo’s group executive of mail business, Janras Kotsi, accused the CWU of driving its own agenda, saying 96% of the temporary workers had reported for duty on Monday.

“The turnout was higher than we had anticipated,” he said.

CWU Gauteng head Aubrey Tshabalala said: “As CWU we want to make the record straight that we have never reached any agreement with Sapo and any agreement that they claim or maintain to be reached is illegal in terms of our recognition agreement.”

He said the union wanted labour brokering banned and temporary employees to be made permanent. “We believe this is possible given the amount of money budgeted for the payment of labour brokers.”

The union expects up to 2 000 workers to descend on the Union Buildings and the head offices of the departments of communications, public enterprises and the Treasury. However, Mr Kotsi said the call was a ploy by the union to “save face” and added that the CWU did not represent the workers, who, as casuals, were not unionised. “I would like to see how many workers turn up to the march tomorrow,” he said.

He said Sapo was committed to the interim plan and had already informed labour brokers of its intention to phase them out over the next three months. “We did this because we discovered that labour brokers were not paying employees their full wages that we paid to them,” said Mr Kotsi.

He said Sapo had already set up the task team comprising a private consulting firm, Sapo management and representatives from unions and the Department of Communications. The aim was to find a workable longterm solution to workers’ demands.

“We are very confident that we will be able to settle the matter.”

CWU also wants the government’s proposed youth wage subsidy to be scrapped and was demanding the reinstatement of 250 call centre workers retrenched by the Gauteng provincial government.

It also called for the reversal of the outsourcing of Sapo’s Speed Services Couriers division to the Courier Freight Group.

As for mail delivery, Mr Kotsi said it would take another two weeks to clear the backlog. He said postal staff were working overtime, including weekends, to catch up.