South African trade union Solidarity and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) have concluded an improved salary agreement, ending a month-long strike by agriculture researchers.
Solidarity has also announced that it is to intensify its efforts to resolve the crisis in agricultural research.
The wage agreement signed by the two parties on Monday includes a basic salary increase of between 7% and 9%, as well as a one-off bonus of R500. The signed agreement is retrospective to July 1.
The agreement also commits both parties to conclude a new agreement before July 2004 in order to find ways in which researchers’ salaries can be made more market related.
Solidarity, the largest trade union in the ARC, began a countrywide strike at all the ARC institutions on August 7.
Solidarity spokesperson Dirk Hermann said its members received an average salary increase of 4% over the past three years.
“A huge backlog developed and therefore it is a breakthrough for us that the ARC committed itself to finding ways in which this backlog can be eliminated,” he said.
Hermann added that Solidarity would intensify its campaign to find solutions for the problems in agricultural research. The union is concerned about the serious brain drain at the ARC.
“During the past 10 years the number of researchers at the ARC has declined by 51%, and in certain specialised fields there are virtually no experienced researchers left,” he said.
He said the union would ask Arts, Culture, Science and Technology Minister Ben Ngubane to bring all interest groups together in order to establish a national strategy for agricultural research.
Agricultural organisations such as Agri SA, TAU-SA, Grain SA and the Oilseeds Producers’ Organisation, as well as opposition parties including the DA, IFP and Freedom Front, have added their concern about the state of agricultural research to that voiced by Solidarity, he said. – I-Net Bridge