The SA Post Office announced last week that it had reached a 6.5 per cent wage settlement with the SA Postal and Allied Workers Union (Sapawu) and the Democratic Postal and Communications Union (Depacu), which collectively represent 61 per cent of the employees at bargaining level.
“There has been a 52 per cent improvement on the absenteeism since Friday; we are still looking at further improvements with the pending shifts during the day,” said Dr Simo Lushaba, leader of the Intervention Team appointed by the Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Affairs to stabilise the SA Post Office.
“We are fast moving towards full capacity shortly.
“This demonstrates that our projections of returning the SA Post Office’s operations to full capacity in the near future are in sight.
“We would like to thank all the role players involved in this process.”
Lushaba said it will ordinarily take 22 days to process and deliver this mail backlog.
“Of the 673 who were absent last Friday, 331 have reported to their posts this morning and we expect this figure to gradually improve during the course of the day,” said Lushaba.
“We still encourage the remaining employees to return to work.”
The Farrarmere and Benoni post offices are still closed.
SA Post Office communications officer Johan Kruger told the City Times on Monday morning that a list of items needed to repair the damaged post offices have been made.
