Trade union federation, COSATU has hailed the recent wage agreement reached by its affiliate, South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) with the rail operator, Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA).
SATAWU and fellow union, United National Transport Union (UNTU) accepted a 5.5% above inflation wage offer after being locked in negotiations with the employer for months.
The unions rejected PRASA’s recent lowball offer of 3%, calling it an insult to workers.
COSATU’s spokesperson Zanele Sabela said that the agreement includes a no-retrenchment clause.
“We welcome this as achievement because the parties appeared far apart at the beginning of the process, with labour demanding a double-digit across-the-board increase, a R3 000 housing subsidy, medical aid subsidy with the employer contributing 70%, a standby and night shift allowance as well as a moratorium on retrenchments. The wage increase will be backdated to April and paid as a lump sum to workers in September,” said Sabela.
She however raised another concern regarding PRASA’S recent proposal to increase ticket prices starting from Friday, August 1st.
“Commuters and commuter associations alike have cried foul saying in some zones the increase will be as much as 58%. COSATU has urged the rail agency to be moderate and limit the fare increases to the prevailing inflation rate given the financial pressures commuters are under. The federation also believes PRASA should focus on bringing the millions of commuters it had before Covid-19 back to its rails before it can even consider an above inflation increase,” said Sabela.
COSATU has also noted with interest the raid of Prasa’s headquarters by the Hawks on Thursday, July 24, where top executives’ mobile phones, laptops and documents were seized in relation to an investigation of two R18 billion train signalling equipment tenders.
“We are encouraged by the fact that Transport Minister Barbara Creecy appointed Weber Wentzel to probe allegations of corruption in the awarding of the tenders. The finalised report was handed over to Creecy and now the Hawks are also investigating the signalling tenders,” remarked Sabela.
The federation has vowed to continue monitoring the developments on the matter closely as PRASA was among the parastatals at the centre of state capture and cautioned that country cannot afford to see the entity become embroiled in more corruption, and once again fail to carry out its mandate of transporting the working class affordably, safely and reliably.
