“We just want to see change; we didn’t really care how long the negotiations took as long as we had our demands met to our favour,” said a 24-year-old petrol attendant, while his colleagues nodded in agreement.
Although a small number of workers expressed their frustration at the duration of wage negotiations, they say they are not willing to back down for anything less than the demanded R30 an hour by 2016 on actual rates of pay in all sectors and divisions for workers earning above R6 000 a month.
Due to the sensitive conditions, these petrol attendants asked not to be named in fear that their names may be recognised by workers who had been boycotting work since September 6.
“My laundry certainly did pile up, and became more work; I did it in enthusiasm with our struggle for better wages in mind,” added another.
Although coming to work was a daily risk for these men as they could have been attacked or victimised by other violent protestors who labelled them rats for not abandoning their employers, these men say they could not allow their families to starve or suffer extreme want, in the name of fighting for minimum wage increase. The 7.5 percent increase offered by their employers had never been a viable option for them.
“We can’t really say that it affected us immensely as we still received money while we waited for a wage agreement to be reached.”
According to Money Web the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (NUMSA) and the Fuel Retailers’ Association (FRA) reached an agreement in wage talks in the automotive sector on September 26 after Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant got involved in the standstill negotiations between employers of petrol attendants and vehicle industry workers on Monday September 23, in negotiations, calling for a speedy resolution.
“We are pleased to have come to a position of agreement with Numsa,” said FRA CEO Reggie Sibiya. Adding that, “the agreement has, however, not been signed, and it is still subject to Numsa taking it to its national executive council (NEC) for ratification.”
However, the details of the agreement had not yet been disclosed while they were waiting for NUMSA to consult with its leadership.
