Strike season: battle fierce

A strike in the passenger train industry could soon leave millions of South African commuters stranded.

The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) sent this warning to commuters on Thursday.

The company says negotiations with the two unions representing employees of its Metrorail and Shosholoza Meyl operations had reached a dead end.

The unions involved are the South African Trade and Allied Workers' Union (Satawu) and the United Transport & Allied Trade Union (Utatu).

Prasa's initial wage increase offer, which was based on the company's available budget, was 5.5%, while the unions were demanding 12%.

According to Prasa the offer had since been increased to 7% retrospective to April 1, with a further increase on September 1. What this increase would, however, be was one of the matters in dispute. The unions wanted 2% while Prasa was offering 1.5%, on the condition that certain problems around service conditions were resolved.

The major issue is not the 7% increase - unions can go along with that - but rather certain service conditions, including overtime, which Prasa can no longer accommodate, explained Prasa chief executive Lucky Montana on Thursday.

According to Montana, these service conditions had been inherited in May 2006 when Prasa took over Metrorail from Transnet.

About 80% of Prasa's employees work for Metrorail.

The original agreement stipulated that the service conditions Transnet had negotiated with the unions would be met by Prasa for only 18 months, after which they would be reviewed.

The date on which this 18-month period would expire was the end of October 2008, but nothing had since changed and these conditions were signing the company's death warrant.

"Prasa's total basic wage costs are, for example, about R1.3bn a year. But the additional service conditions that include overtime expenditure of R300m a year increase Prasa's total staff costs to R2.2bn."

But Utata deputy secretary Pieter Greyling says Prasa must stop putting the blame on Transnet.

"We are negotiating with Prasa, not with Transnet. The service conditions are a separate matter over which we will negotiate later. For now we want to finalise the wage negotiations."

Greyling says for the past five years Prasa has not increased ticket prices on its metro trains.

"They therefore simply have to increase these prices, and then they will be able to pay our people their due."

But Montana reckons if Prasa is to meet all the union's demands, it will have to increase ticket prices by up to 25%. According to Greyling it would need to be only 7%.

Satawu general secretary Randall Howard says the unit is working hard to find a solution. "On Monday Satawu will take a final decision on issuing a 48-hour strike warning."

- Sake24