Post Office employees receive 6,5% increase

The South African Post Office (Sapo) and its recognised trade unions, the Communication Workers Union (CWU), Democratic Postal Workers Union (Depacu), and the South African Postal Workers Union (Sapwu) reached an agreement regarding salary increases last Wednesday and this brought to an end the national Sapo strike that commenced on 3 July.
Sapo national spokesperson Johan Kruger said in a media statement that, in terms of the agreement, Post Office employees across the board will receive a salary increase of 6,5%, backdated to 1 April. Furthermore, the contracted working hours for permanent part-time employees have been moved from 21½ hours per week to 27½ hours per week, he explained. Kruger indicated that 500 of these positions are earmarked to be phased in as permanent full-time employees in due course following an appropriate process.
“Accumulated mail is expected to take roughly 20 work days to be processed. Sapo appreciated the importance of the South Africa Social Security Agency (Sassa) project and is committed to work closely with its employees to ensure the livelihoods of the most vulnerable are not put under unnecessary strain. Sapo has reached a milestone of migrating 2,2 million social grant beneficiaries to the new gold card,” he explained.
Kruger added that they assure all beneficiaries that the Information Technology (IT) challenges that impacted last month’s payment run have been resolved and encouraged all social grant beneficiaries to migrate to the new gold card at pay-points.

Story: ENDY SENYATSI
>>endy@observer.co.za