Post Office faces crippling strike - South Africa

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The Communication Workers’ ­Union (CWU), the majority union at the South African Post Office (Sapo), has threatened to go on strike over a 10-year, R520 million lease agreement allegedly concluded by some senior managers of the mail and banking parastatal without following the Treasury’s procurement regulations.

The union, currently in the middle of wage talks with Sapo, ­confirmed this week that it had used the lease scandal to put pressure on the parastatal’s negotiators to accede to its wage demand of an 11% hike for its members.

However, Sapo has dug in its heels on a 6.25% offer, resulting in the negotiations collapsing and the union filing a wage dispute with the Commission for Conciliation, ­Mediation and Arbitration.

“We have told them that we are not prepared to accept anything less than a 10% increase while the management has made big bungles on two property lease tenders, which have resulted in wasteful expenditure,” said Clyde Mervin, the first deputy president of the CWU.