Post Office workers planning to strike again

The union says stay-away action will be taken on Thursday and they plan marches on Friday.

Aubrey Tshabalala, CWU spokesman, says the decision was taken during a meeting held earlier this week.

Not receiving a salary increase in the last two years is only one of the issues that was raised at the union’s national executive committee.

He claims they need to push government to fund the South African Post Office (SAPO) as the infrastructure has crumbled.

Tshabalala says the workers claim when delivery bicycles break, they have to reach into their own pockets to fix it as there is no money available for that.

Mark Barnes, SAPO’s chief executive officer, says they have not received any notice of the strike from the CWU.

“We are in constant communication with the trade unions about issues regarding SAPO employees and I have also communicated with all our employees regarding labour issues.

SAPO has started recovering in terms of service standards and is in the process of making financial improvements as well.”

Barnes says the company needs funding to address the concerns of its employees, so a strike at this time, which will jeopardise current funding arrangements, would be very unhelpful. “We sincerely wish to avert the necessity of a strike to address issues,” he says.

However, they have contingency plans to deal with service interruptions that can be activated at very short notice.