Sars gets court interdict against ‘illegal’ picketing by strikers

In a statement on Thursday, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) announced it had obtained an interim Labour Court order interdicting National Education and Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) and Public Servants’ Association (PSA) members from picketing in places other than those specified in the CCMA picketing rules issued on 18 March 2018.

“This follows illegal picketing and several gatherings that took place outside the agreed upon areas, that is, SARS Head Office and Alberton Campus,” said spokesperson Sandile Memela.

Nehawu and the PSA had been ordered to fully comply with the picketing rules issued and ordered to refrain from staging any picketing, gatherings or marches at any other location, with immediate effect.

He said both the employer and organised labour were to meet on Friday at the CCMA to engage in formal discussions in a bid to amend the picketing rules.

On Thursday, the day after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced Edward Kieswetter as the new commissioner of Sars, employees at the tax authority started a nationwide strike. It was also the day before the deadline for filing for the 2017/18 tax year and for provisional corporate income tax payments.

Officials GroundUp spoke to said that Sars points at entries to the country at the international airports and the borders with Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Mozambique were closed.

About 150 people picketed at the Sars branch in the Durban city centre. And in Cape Town about 100 employees picketed at the Sats offices on the Foreshore. Employees from the Bellville office also participated. A union member said that the queue for Sars had been extremely long at 6am in the morning, but by the time GroundUp arrived there was no queue, as people had given up.

The strike followed a wage dispute. A Nehawu statement said that negotiations at SARS for the 2019/20 financial year started in November 2018. A deal could not be reached and the CCMA was asked to intervene. Nehawu’s key demands are for an 11.4% salary increase, a long-service benefit and better family responsibility leave. The union claims it revised its position during the CCMA mediation but Sars management did not, leading to a notice to strike on 20 March. Subsequent meetings with Sars management also did not resolve the disagreement.

A Sars press statement confirmed that it had reached a deadlock in negotiations with the PSA and Nehawu. Sars said it tabled a proposal that would see top-performing lower-earning Sars employees receive increases up to 9.2%. Also, no employee would receive an increase of less than 5.2% (inflation plus 1.1%). This proposal was rejected by the unions, which insisted on an across-the-board increase of 11.4%.

But Sars also said the only remaining point of difference was the length of time covered by the agreement. Sars wants it to cover a longer period than the unions are willing to concede.

“Since this was a settlement offer, the rejection by organised labour of a multi-term agreement left Sars with no option but to revert to its previous position of a 7% across the board increase at single term,” read its statement.

However, Sars said, if the unions consulted their members and they accepted the offer of 8% across the board, and CPI plus 1% in subsequent years, the dispute would be resolved.

Background reporting by GroundUp

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.