The four-day old strike at oil and chemicals group Sasol’s Secunda plant has ended. This comes after Sasol’s management reached an agreement with trade union Solidarity, in terms of which the trade unions will take part in the internal investigation into the explosion at the Secunda plant on September 1.
Eight people died in the accident.
The trade union said in a statement on Monday that Sasol would not, however, give in to workers’ salary demands and that workers would have to settle for a 6% increase.
Solidarity’s occupational safety expert Chris Pienaar said that the trade union was pleased to have been included in the internal investigation, as well as the secondary investigation, which is to follow once the internal investigation had been completed.
“The internal investigation may take as long as eight weeks and only then can the secondary investigation commence. This would have been a very long time for the trade unions to be sidelined,” Pienaar added.
Pienaar said that a preliminary accident report by the Department of Labour would most likely be issued on Monday.
After that a more intensive investigation will follow, which is expected to take approximately two months.
He added that only then could the formal investigation in terms of Act 32 of the Occupational Safety Act commence, during which time the various parties may be cross-examined in order to establish the cause of the accident. – I-Net Bridge