Entering their eleventh week of strike action, casual postal workers continue to not only disrupt the country’s mail service, but also to create mayhem and to damage SA Post Office (Sapo) property.
There is currently no indication when the strike, which has crippled the country’s postal services, will end and normal mail and parcel delivery would resume.
While government and unions spent yesterday trying to find a solution to the labour action, ordinary citizens, especially the elderly without access to electronic mail, and small businesses suffer the consequences of the extracted strike – the fifth since 2011 by casual post office employees demanding permanent positions.
Although Sapo chief executive officer Chris Hlekane has been placed on “extended leave” in the first week of October and had been replaced by chief operating officer Mlu Mathonsi, it appears that the end of the strike was not in sight.
While citizens cannot get their bills, students their assignments and businesses their regular mail and parcels, the Freedom Front Plus parliamentary spokesman on communication, Anton Alberts, warned that the situation was explosive and that one of the unions involved, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) had informed its members to “prepare for war”.
He said the situation was getting out of control and called on government to step in to stop the wide scale of violence and destruction at the hands of the striking workers.
Amidst rumours that the post office was on the brink of bankruptcy, Alberts added that the CWU insisted on a ridiculous 15% increase while Sapo was offering more in the line of 5%.
Meanwhile, regular citizens are desperate for their mail and to date, Sapo had been mum about how they intend to clear the accumulated 11-week backlog of letters and parcels gathering dust at sorting centres around the country. It is also alleged that striking workers are destroying mail and parcels at some postal outlets as part of their protest action.
“We are aware of the frustration caused to our customers and empathise with small businesses and ordinary members of the public who rely on postal services for settling accounts,” Mathonsi earlier said in a statement.
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Also read: Post Office delays continue
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Strike leads to closure of post offices
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