The United National Transport Union (UNTU) welcomes the attempt of Mr. Collins Letsoalo, the newly appointed acting group CEO of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA), to resolve the dispute declared by the Union on behalf of its members for not complying with a number of items reflected in a settlement agreement.
Mr. Steve Harris, general secretary of UNTU, says this agreement was reached to improve the industrial relations that are threatening the stability of the troubled PRASA. “As a responsible Union we realise the last thing the South African economy needs is more social political unrest and a punishing rail strike. This is getting increasingly hard to prevent as PRASA has not implemented the improvements agreed to after more than 50 hours of intensive negotiating over four consecutive days.”
According to Mr. Harris UNTU struggles to prevent this from happening whilst PRASA continue to ignore its workers.
PRASA agreed to amongst other, implement transport for nightshift employees, clearer performance management, the encashment of leave, immediate implementation of the acting policy, a possible wider range of health care choices and the alignment of salaries which should have seen many employees’ salaries raised to the levels of new recruits who have been offered more for doing the same work.
These would have given employees more clearly identified career paths, initiated payments of earned overtime and leave benefits, eliminated the anomalies in monthly pay packets caused by administrative inefficiencies, corrected payment disparities of doing the same work and provided transport assistance to those working late hours.
Mr. Harris says PRASA’s failure to comply with the agreement and implement the improvements, placed the integrity of the organisation and the UNION in jeopardy and has a negative impact on the future relationship of PRASA’s management and organised labour.
‘’UNTU would want to see PRASA become the best and most successful commuter service in South Africa. However, there is a long hard road ahead to resolve its problems within and to restore the relationship with the UNION as a very important key stakeholder.”
Mr. Harris urged Mr. Letsoalo to urgently intervene to resolve this serious impasse. UNTU remains committed to discuss the matter while waiting for the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) to arrange a date for a hearing of the dispute.
For further enquiries please phone Mr. Harris on (011) 728 0120 or 082 566 5516.
Issued on behalf of UNTU by Sonja Carstens, Media and Liaison Officer. For UNTU Press Releases e-mail sonja@untu.co.za or phone 082 463 6806.
