The South African Post Office strike is over.
Trade unions and management signed a wage agreement on Wednesday evening, bringing to an end two weeks of delayed mail, closed post offices and the stalling in the distribution of new cards required to access social grants.
The settlement between Sapo and three unions — the Communication Workers Union, the Democratic Postal Workers Union, and the South African Postal Workers Union — includes a salary increase of 6.5%, an increase in working hours for part-time employees and agreement to phase in 500 part-timers into full-time positions.
The Post Office said accumulated mail was expected to take 20 working days to be processed.
It also promised social grant recipients that "the IT challenges that impacted last month’s payment run have been resolved. We encourage all social grant beneficiaries to migrate to the new gold Sassa/Sapo card at pay points."
Sapo said it had so far transferred 2.2-million welfare beneficiaries to the new Sapo card, which would enable them to collect social grant payments.
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