The bus passenger sector workers said that employers, the South African Bus Employers Association and the Commuter Bus Employers Organisation, had refused to negotiate a salary increase since January.
A Rea Vaya bus. Picture: reavaya.org.za
JOHANNESBURG – Some bus commuters may be left stranded heading into the upcoming Easter weekend as trade union Numsa prepares for a national bus strike if employers don’t consider negotiating their workers’ demands.
The bus passenger sector workers said that employers, the South African Bus Employers Association and the Commuter Bus Employers Organisations, had refused to negotiate a salary increase since January.
The union said that workers had also asked for health insurance benefits since they had not been provided any medical cover at all.
It said that the employers had so far proposed a 6% increase for three years, conditional that workers drop their demand for medical aid and insurance.
Numsa’s Phakamile Hlubi-Majola: “We have been trying to negotiate with employers through the South African Road Passenger Bargaining Council and we declared a dispute in February but employers are stubbornly refusing to give workers a meaningful increase and if the employers do not come to the negotiating table, we will have no choice but to resort to a full-blown strike.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
