Photo by: Creamer Media
Transnet and its recognised unions – the United National Transport Union and the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union – will reconvene talks at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) on Wednesday after intensive negotiations on Monday failed to deliver a breakthrough.
The State-owned freight logistics group said in a statement that the first day of CCMA-facilitated conciliation talks adjourned in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
“The parties have agreed and signed on the picketing rules and picketing sites, and remain willing to find a solution on the wage negotiations, under the auspices of the CCMA.
“The parties to the negotiations are considering alternative proposals and will reconvene on Wednesday, 12 October 2022 to take the process forward.”
It has been reported that the talks deadlocked amid calls for a speedy resolution to the dispute from various business formations and despite the intervention of Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi.
Transnet has already declared force majeure, indicating that it is unable to fulfil its contractual obligations to clients, which include major minerals exporters, which have endured similar events in recent months precipitated mainly by cable theft and the unavailability of rolling stock as a result of a protracted Transnet dispute over spares with one of its locomotive suppliers.
The mining industry has calculated the loss associated by the underperformance of Transnet to be about R50-billion and has estimated that it could have generated another R100-billion in revenue, were it not for capacity constraints on rail and at the ports.
Transnet has offered increases of between 1.5% and 3% effective from April, but unions are demanding between 12% and 13.5%.