Mining Weekly reports that Busisiwe Mavuso, CEO of Business Leadership SA, was “astounded” to learn last week of Transnet's capitulation to unions’ strike threats by agreeing to give workers 6% pay rises in each of the next three years.
“This agreement represents a failure of leadership on both sides – militant unions holding the country hostage with strike threats and management caving to their demands without a fight,” she said in her weekly newsletter on Tuesday. Mavuso noted that, while SA businesses were cutting costs and workers faced retrenchment across the economy, Transnet workers would get pay rises that were double the inflation rate, funded by taxpayers who were already struggling to make ends meet. She pointed out that consumer inflation was running at 2.7% and the economy was expected to grow by only 1.4% this year. Amplifying Mavuso’s concern was that the wage increase news came mere days after National Treasury had agreed to give Transnet additional guarantees to enable it to manage its huge debt pile.
Mavuso commented further: “The unions are acting as if we live in a world we haven't seen for 15 years, when growth was running at over 5% and government boasted a budget surplus.” She pointed out that instead that “we live in a world where Goodyear Tyres has just let go of over 900 workers … where South African Breweries is engaging with unions about retrenching workers … where mines across the country are retrenching thousands because they cannot get their output to the markets.” In her view, in many of these cases, “union action at Transnet is a direct contributor to this job carnage.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard at Mining Weekly
- Read too, Unions treat government as an endless ATM, says Busisiwe Mavuso, at News24 (subscription / trial registration required)
- Read Busisiwe Mavuso newsletter in full at Moneyweb
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page