Post Office strike over

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

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According to a statement issued by the CWU, workers would now head back to their posts.

“CWU members working the normal work week will be expected to resume work on August 31 2009 and those workers who are supposed to work on Saturdays will be expected to resume work tomorrow [Saturday],” it said.

The CWU said the parties had agreed to a seven percent annual salary increment for all CWU members in the bargaining unit.

Workers earning the highest salary in a given job rate would receive a five percent pensionable increment and two percent as a lump sum.

The CWU said agreement had been reached regarding salary anomalies within the South African Post Office.

These would be eradicated “once and for all”, and a process and timeframe of three years had been endorsed by parties to that effect.

CWU members on the lowest levels would receive a salary rate adjustment of between seven and 10 percent, the CWU said.

The combination of the annual salary increment and the adjustment of salary rate per job amounted to adjustments of between 16 and 22 percent.

Regarding labour brokers, the CWU said that the post office had agreed to abide by the outcome of engagements at political levels between labour government and business in this regard.

“The company has also agreed to be engaged on the conversions of  labour broker employee’s employment status into permanent positions,” it said.

CWU members who had embarked on the strike would have the eight days converted into vacation leave, the union said.

In a separate statement, the post office confirmed that it had reached an agreement with the CWU.

It also confirmed that some workers would return to work on Saturday.

“The SA Post Office appreciates the difficult time that the general public and our customers went through during this time and wishes to thank everyone for their continued patience and understanding.

“We aim to have all delivery backlogs cleared within a week,” it added.