Pretoria - Disgruntled workers at the Tshwane Mail Centre have threatened to continue protesting until their demand for 6.5% salary increase has been implemented.
Yesterday, they protested outside the SA Post Office, claiming that management was taking money from their salaries.
Communication Workers Union local office bearer Mamotshabi Matloha said they were also not happy with the many acting positions because it seemed like a tactic for management to not take accountability.
She said they experienced a number of issues including that management was not paying their pension fund to the relevant stakeholders
“We just want management to update our statutory benefits.
“When the union had engagements with management we found out that they were failing to implement the agreement that was signed last year,” she said.
She said there were deductions that appeared on the payslip such as Unemployment Insurance Fund, pension, SA Revenue Service and medical aid, which were not going where they were supposed to.
Matloha said there were a number of people in head office in acting positions, and the lack of structure at the post office allowed the organisation to get away with no accountability.
This was the cause of most of their problems because no one was accounting for the challenges they had, and blame was easily shifted, she said.
“We tried to engage management on several occasions but they are simply just not coming to the party.”
The protest started on Monday at the head offices, and, said one worker at the protest yesterday, they would continue until all demands of a 6.5% salary increase were met.
He said they were supposed to get their salary increase in April last year, however, the centre was coming up with many excuses not to pay them.
“People are frustrated.
“What we are demanding is very simple because they signed the agreement way before lockdown… now they have excuses.”
The group of about 100 workers protesting outside the head office demanded to talk to the relevant authorities about the matter, and were told that the authorities would address them soon.
The group, however, left before anyone had addressed them, and said they would continue the protest this morning until an official spoke to them.
Officials said they would respond to the workers’ complaints, but had not done so by the time of publication.
Pretoria News