Union takes Post Office to task
Solidarity plans to take fight to court
TRADE union Solidarity is planning to turn to the North Gauteng High Court for an urgent application against the SA Post Office in a bid to secure the rights of workers.
Solidarity sent a letter of demand to the Post Office and gave the entity until the close of business yesterday to respond.
The union insists that the employer must provide proof that it has complied with all its statutory and contractual obligations towards its employees to date.
Anton van der Bijl, head of labour law services at the union, said that since April 1 the postal service had failed to meet its statutory and contractual obligations, which include the payment of medical aid contributions, taxes and pension fund contributions on behalf of its employees.
He said this was while the entity continues to deduct these contributions from staff salaries.
“Since April, millions of rand have been deducted from employees’ salaries, but the postal service has not handed over a single cent of that money to the relevant funds. This cannot be described as anything less than theft,” he said.
He added that the failure had resulted in employees’ membership contributions to medical and pension funds to be in arrears, which has serious implications and could lead to the termination of benefits.
It is stated in the letter of demand that the Post Office is also deducting tax contributions from members as well as skills development levies, but it is apparently failing to pay these contributions over to the relevant state agencies.
Van der Bijl called on the entity to provide the union with proof that these monies had been paid over to the relevant offices. He said apart from being prejudicial to the members, it was unlawful not to pay the deductions over.
He said the deductions from the salaries belonged to the workers and could not be used for the Post Office’s operational liabilities.
“We do not have sympathy with the Post Office’s financial woes. It’s because of bad management and bad decisions made. Management should face these problems and it should not filter down to the workers.”
The Post Office received a temporary reprieve in September when the court dismissed an application by its retirement fund to force the company to pay its statutory obligations, including its workers’ contributions to the fund.
The pension fund at the time turned to the court to try to force the Post Office to contribute to the workers’ pension fund.
The Post Office admitted in that application that it was broke. It said that only 55 of its 1 416 branches were profitable during the lockdown. It said staff salaries cost R1.2 billion, which was nearly two-thirds of its expenses.
In coming to the Post Office’s aid in September, the court pointed out that despite the risks in not paying creditors, the entity had done everything possible during these trying times to pay its workers’ basic salaries, even if it could not afford all fringe benefits.