Bombela, the operator of the Gautrain, put an 8% salary increase on the negotiation table this morning to try and prevent a strike by die United National Transport Union (UNTU).
UNTU is demanding a 9% increase and an increase in other benefits such as the housing and transport allowances.
UNTU refuses to accept this latest desperate attempt from Bombela to prevent the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) from issuing the Union with a certificate giving them permission to strike.
“Bombela wants to attach various conditions to the proposed settlement. The employer expects UNTU to sign an agreement with a clause stating that the agreement will be null and void if UNTU does not have 50% membership at the end of October,” says Eddie de Klerk, deputy general secretary of UNTU.
Bombela admitted that UNTU was the majority union when the dispute in salary negotiations was declared on June 11. Bombela came to the CCMA in July arguing that UNTU had lost a few members within a month and therefoer no longer enjoyed the majority union position, De Klerk said.
“UNTU has until the end of October to rectify its membership. It is a question of a few members. This means that Bombela currently has no bargaining partner in terms of its collective agreement. The other union at the Gautrain’s membership are far lower than that of UNTU,” De Klerk explained.
Two senior commissioners of the CCMA are trying their utmost best to try and mediate the dispute. If the ruling is in favour of UNTU, the union can go ahead with a strike. Bombela repeatedly stated that it did not want the CCMA to issue UNTU with a certificate to strike.
The parties are now in separate rooms and the commissioners are trying to facilitate.
