The SA Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) has rejected a revised wage offer from employers, sticking to its demand for above-inflation wages in the struggling bus sector.
The union, one of the largest in the sector, is demanding an 11% wage increase, more than double the 4.9% inflation rate the SA Reserve Bank has forecast for 2022. Workers in the sector earn a minimum wage of R7,500 a month.
Solomon Mahlangu, Satawu’s national co-ordinator for passenger bus workers, told Business Day on Wednesday: “In January we held a four-day discussion over the demands but we could not make progress as employers tabled a 2.5% wage increase and a zero increase on allowances. The second session, which was also a four-day engagement, was held last week.”
He said the parties failed to reach an agreement.
During the second session the employers revised their wage proposal to 3% “on condition that we withdraw some of our demands”, he said.
“In March we are going for mediation. If we don’t reach an agreement, then a certificate of non-resolution will be issued, which will give workers the right to go on strike, and employers the right to implement a lockout.”
The bus industry is among sectors that have been hit hard by the Covid pandemic due to the various levels of lockdown and restrictions the government implemented to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Restrictions included the closure of borders as well as lockdown rules limiting bus occupancy numbers. These resulted in the Greyhound and Citiliner bus lines closing shop in February 2021, with 4,000 employees estimated to have lost their jobs.
Workers in the sector settled for a 4% wage increase in April 2021, despite initially demanding increases of between 7.5% and 8.5%. In 2020, the sector implemented a 6% wage hike.
Mahlangu said the union’s other demands include an 11% increase on a subsistence and travel allowance of R690. Satawu also wants the double-driver allowance for long-distance drivers of R400 to be increased by 11%.
The demands were sent to the SA Road Passenger Bargaining Council in December 2021, said Mahlangu.
Bargaining council general secretary Gary Wilson said: “Indeed, two sessions were held already, the parties could not reach an agreement. According to our constitution, if parties can’t get to an agreement, then the process goes to mediation which has been set for March 14.”
Wilson said the mediation process would try to get the parties closer to some agreement. “We have not reached the end of the line, we are hoping the parties, at some stage, will meet each other halfway and reach a settlement,” he said.
Update: February 23 2022
This article has been updated to include comment from SA Road Passenger Bargaining Council.
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