Truck drivers ended their six-day strike on Tuesday with the signing of a wage agreement.
”Drivers will be back at work tomorrow [Wednesday],” said African Mining and Allied Workers’ Union (Amawu) national organiser Phiwa Dlamini.
Supermarket shelves were without many product lines and some petrol stations in Johannesburg and KwaZulu-Natal were out of fuel by the time the truck drivers’ sometimes violence-marred strike entered its sixth day on Tuesday.
Not everyone was happy with the deal hammered out in talks that stretched through Monday night, said the Transport and Allied Workers’ Union’s (Tawu) Zack Mankge.
About 500 truck drivers massed outside the offices of the National Bargaining Council for the Road Freight Industry in Braamfontein. They lobbed apples at unionists tasked with explaining the settlement reached in Tuesday’s early hours.
”We were grateful they only had apples this morning and not bricks,” quipped one union representative.
In the end, though, the drivers gave their leaders the mandate to sign the agreement, which has been under negotiation since September last year.
The South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) hopes its members’ ”mixed feelings” will be put to rest through an explanation of how the agreement will be applied.
”The next step is to educate — take members through the agreement,” said Satawu vice-president June Dube, hopeful it is through this exercise that those members ”still moaning” will understand what they will receive.
In terms of the agreement, drivers in the general freight, furniture, timber and sugar-cane sectors will get a 7,5% increase plus a 2,5% allowance calculated on their existing basic wage from June 1.
Drivers in other categories will receive a 7% pay hike and a 3% allowance, also from June 1.
The allowances are to make up for the three months (March, April and May) in which the drivers will not receive the increase pending its promulgation by Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana, said the Motor Transport Workers’ Union’s (MTWU) Emily Fourie.
According to the deal, the allowances will cease on February 28 next year.
The settlement stipulates that a report be submitted by July 1 on differentiation between general freight and other transport categories, and that a process of dealing with differentiation in the various sectors begin on September 1.
It further requires the establishment of a task team to look into the distinction between workers in the Gauteng area and those in the rest of the country, resulting in the submission of a report by July 15.
The agreement with the Road Freight Employers’ Association (RFEA) was signed by Amawu, the MTWU, the Professional Transport Workers’ Union of South Africa, Satawu and Tawu — which are together believed to represent about 68 000 truck drivers throughout the country.
The RFEA represents companies whose work is cartage for hire and reward. It does not include trucks owned by the companies for which they haul goods.
All parties roundly thanked the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) and private dispute resolution agency Tokisa for intervening to resolve the wage crisis.
The CCMA had to step in because of the strike’s impact on the economy, and labour peace and stability, said CCMA director Edwin Molahlehi.
However, he pointed out that it is significant that all parties to the negotiations kept to the established procedures throughout and continued talking to each other.
”Even when the CCMA came in, the process had not collapsed,” he said.
The cash-in-transit industry was not part of the protracted negotiations. It settled much earlier in the process, agreeing to a 7% rise and a 3,5% allowance effective from July 1 until February 28 2006. — Sapa